


The Return of Imagination

by andersam5



Category: Disney - All Media Types, Disney Kingdoms (Comics)
Genre: Based mainly on the comic, Dr. Nigel Channing needs a vacation, Epcot, Gen, Theme park fic, Walt Disney World, You don't need to know what Captain Disillusion is to understand this fic, imagination institute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-13 17:02:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16022192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andersam5/pseuds/andersam5
Summary: Dean Finder is just another employee at the Imagination Institute- uninteresting, unimaginative, and absolutely normal in every way. At the start of an ordinary day, a new enemy of imagination in the modern age rears its head. The Dreamfinder has been missing for years, leaving it up to Dean, Figment, IT intern Alan, and cast member Ellie to find a way to prevent the entire EPCOT park from spiraling into conspiracy, chaos, and lies.Co-written with Tumblr user Wafflebloggies





	1. Dean Finder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean Finder is just another employee at the Imagination Institute- uninteresting, unimaginative, and absolutely normal in every way. At the start of an ordinary day, a new enemy of imagination in the modern age rears its head. The Dreamfinder has been missing for years, leaving it up to Dean, Figment, IT intern Alan, and cast member Ellie to find a way to prevent the entire EPCOT park from spiraling into conspiracy, chaos, and lies.

                 Dean Finder slid himself out of bed and nearly onto the floor. A tired hand fumbled about, nearly knocking over a glass on the nightstand before it found the snooze button. The hand then located a rounded pair of old spectacles and latched onto them, reeling them in like a lazy fishing line. Now that he could see, Dean stumbled into the bathroom, nearly tripping over a pile of clothes. He held his fingers under the tap, waiting patiently for the rusty pipes on his building to wake up and deliver warm water. His gaze caught the mirror as he waited. A beard was yet again trying to grow from his stubby chin, tinged an amber orange. Dean frowned as he glanced at the blinking clock on the toilet, calculating the difference in time and coming to the conclusion he had no time to shave.

                The rest of the morning was a whirlwind of brushed teeth, acceptable clothes and a breakfast consisting of two pieces of toast, chewed on as he made a peanut butter sandwich with one hand and fumbled for the TV remote with the other. The picture on the old junker of a TV had barely begun to die as Dean slipped out the apartment door.

                Down the stairs and out to the street below, the morning damp already starting to evaporate in the Florida sun. Dean picked up his feet as he made it to the street corner just as his bus did. He hopped on, swiping his card and collapsing into a seat as the bus started to move.

                "Cutting it a little close today?" asked the man sitting next to him, laughing as he pulled out an earbud. He looked just a year or so younger then Dean, with short curly dark-brown hair and a black-and-grey striped shirt.

                "Thanks for saving me a seat, Alan."

                "Anytime, D. Us commuters gotta stick together. Oh, looks like you remembered your lunch today."

                "Tired of the Institute cafeteria food," Dean explained, shortly.

                "I hear that," Alan replied as he held his phone back up. Dean leaned over, trying to get a look.

                "Another visual effects tutorial?"

                "Oh yeah. Seen this one a dozen times before. The guy narrating this one is missing out on several key facets of the illusion-"

                Dean let him talk. Once Alan got started, it was hard to stop him.

                The bus lumbered from stoplight to stoplight, brakes hissing like a grumpy snake as it stopped and started, vying with the early-morning traffic. The herky-jerky movement made Alan’s exposition sound a bit like he had hiccups. He wound down soon enough on his own, smiling a short self-conscious smile at the mom with a pushchair across the aisle, who was close enough to potentially-maybe-almost be in earshot.

                “Are you okay?” he asked Dean. “You’re kind of quiet this morning. _Quieter,”_ he corrected himself. “Than usual.”

                "I'm fine," he sighed after a long moment of seeming to think rather hard about something. Saying nothing else after that Alan had figured he was done, and his earbud had barely been replaced when Dean spoke again. "You ever get that feeling that you had a dream the night before, but you can't remember what happened in it?"

                Alan shrugged. “Uh, yeah, all the time. It’s something to do with your sleep patterns, I think, or what point you wake up… wait, didn't you say you don't dream?"

                "That’s just it." Dean lifted up his baseball cap, combing his orange hair under it before setting it back down. He hadn't even had time to brush it this morning. "I don't dream. Never had one that I could remember. But it feels like I did last night." A sigh passed his lips in time with the hissing of the bus’s brakes as it reached another stoplight. "I'm probably thinking too much about it."

                “Everybody dreams, dude,” said Alan, watching Dean trying to force his hair back under his cap with a touch of amusement. “I mean, unless you’re secretly an alien or something. You probably just forgot.”

                He circled a vague finger at the area of Dean’s ear. “Uh, you’ve got sort of... a tuft.”

                "Thanks." He fumbled, tucking it under as the bus started to move again. "How are things in the... where do you work in the Institute, again?" he asked, embarrassed.

                “Things in Systems Support are just fantastic,” said Alan, in the tone of voice he tended to use when he meant things were not very fantastic at all. He was staring out of the window. Open lakes and marshy tree-tangled culverts rolled past under the rising sun. “Sometimes I’d rather work for the alligators. There’s the chance of being eaten, but at least they don’t think they know how to use computers.”

                "I dunno, give a thousand alligators a thousand typewriters and they might come up with something," Dean said with a smile as the bus passed through a gate and deep into theme park property.

 

* * *

 

 

                The Imagination Institute was certainly an unusual workplace. It looked as if someone had taken two perfectly normal glass office towers and stuck them haphazardly in the earth like a 3-year-old stuck candles into a cake; diagonally. The result was a pair of glass pyramids hugged by buildings containing labs. In the 90’s, the Academy Scientifica-Lucidus had hit hard times, and was threatening to close. Disney had stepped in and cut a deal; a second campus was created separate from the original Academy, and relocated to be part of a joint venture with their amusement park. The result was the Imagination Institute, an open tour that tried to get some science accomplished in the meantime. Neither of the boys bothered to look up as the bus rolled to a stop at the employee entrance.

                "You might want to wait for the next stop ma'am," Dean kindly told a couple who had started to gather their things. Maps, cameras, backpacks; clearly tourists.

                The morning was warmer now as they stepped into the sunshine, Dean checking to make sure Alan was behind him before they headed for the doors.

                The bag check on the doors was mandatory these days. There wasn’t much of a line for the staff entrance, and the security guard barely poked at Dean’s bag before waving him through. He’d never been pulled aside or chosen for a search in all the time he’d worked in the place, although it was supposed to be random. Evidently, Security just didn’t consider him very interesting.

                He left Alan at the stairs where the way to their respective departments split. As a ‘junior’ member of the building’s IT support team, Alan seemed to spend most of his day being paged to different parts of the building, but whenever nobody was having a technical crisis he tended to keep a low profile in Systems Support’s ground-floor hub. Maybe that was part of the reason why the two of them had become friends- both certainly had a knack

 for keeping a low profile.

                After dropping his lunch off at the break room, Dean grabbed one of the show labcoats off the hook, tugging it on and pinning his badge to the front.

                'D. Finder,' it read, and the picture was just as unassuming as he was, the expression of how lucky he was to have landed the lab assistant job still on his face. Dean didn't remember much of college. All the nights of solitary studying and the occasional awkward social events had all blended into a grey lump of memory. His grades had been average, but the Institute had gladly taken him on mere days after he applied. While it had only been a few months ago, the memory was already starting to feel like a yellowing photograph in his mind.

                He'd been remembering all this as he walked absent-mindedly out the door, and straight into someone else.

                "Oh goodness, Dr. Channing, sir, I'm so sorry-" His hand came out to steady his boss. Dr. Channing was the head of the Institute, even if the man did seem to wear the title very reluctantly. At the present moment however, he seemed to be occupied with yet another of the million things on his shoulders.

                "Ah, yes, good morning, Devin."

                "Dean, sir," he patiently corrected. Channing seemed instead to be looking at the vent mounted close to the ceiling, as if keeping an eye out for something

                "Is everything alright?"

                “Slight pest control problem,” said Channing, without taking his eye off the vent. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

                _You._ Something about the way he said the word was mildly derogatory, an offhand reminder that he, Dr. Channing, was indeed worrying about whatever-it-was because it was something important enough that it was _his_ job to worry about it, of all people, and therefore the whole situation was far, far over the head of some peon in a lab coat.

                Dean could feel his brow raise sceptically before he could stop it. He turned, following the doctors gaze. The vent stayed as it probably had every day since it was installed; silent and pumping out vital air conditioning. "Lizards again?"

                "You could say that..." Channing trailed off before he seemed to remember Dean was there.

                The vent was certainly an ongoing focus of attention. Before too long, a couple of security guards had joined Channing in looking up at it, although in their case it was with a slight sense of bafflement and side-glances at each other, neither being entirely sure what they had been summoned for. After a little while, the group was joined by a middle-ranking scientist or two. One of them had brought a broom, but it was a deal too short to reach the vent. By the time Dean left, unnoticed by anybody and smiling quietly to himself, there was intense discussion about the nearest possible place to loan a large stepladder.

 

* * *

 

 

                Dean wore the smile through most of the morning, the grin threatening to renew as rumours of a disturbance in the air conditioning system rippled through the building later that morning. Filing papers and categorizing lab reports made the morning go rather quick, and soon Dean found a suitable breaking spot for lunch.

                In one corner of the complex, surrounded by sun-baked administrative buildings and away from the prying eyes of the hundreds of daily Institute guests, was a small green space. It was quite like Dean himself, always there but never really useful or eye catching enough to stand out. It was practically always deserted, making it the perfect place for some peace and quiet. In the shade of a stubborn old tree, Dean set himself on his usual spot, undoing the latches on his lunchbox. Out came a can of soda, a baggie of potato chips, and lastly, the sandwich he’d hastily made that morning. Unwrapping it from the plastic baggie, he left one triangle sitting atop the lunchbox as he started to munch on the other half.

                He waited.

                Perhaps five minutes passed. It was a warm, breezeless day, and the branches of the tree over Dean’s head were stone-still, but as he quietly ate his sandwich, a funny surreptitious sort of rustling shivered through the leaves just above him. Another moment, and then in a sudden all-in-one tumble, a small purple confused blur of a creature fell out of the foliage on a single frantic downbeat of its tiny orange wings and dove straight under the bench at Dean’s feet, grabbing the other half of his sandwich on the way.

                Dean flinched back at the sudden disappearance of the other half of his sandwich. His eyes followed the blur of purple as he bent, straining to look under the bench. Nothing but scraggly patches of grass greeted him. Suddenly, there was a weight on his head as something pushed on his hat, making the brim fall over his eyes. Dean laughed, stretching his arm out to keep his sandwich out of reach of whatever was assaulting him.

                "Nuh-uh!  This one's mine!"

                _“Shhhh,”_ whispered Figment, his large and luminous yellow eyes staring earnestly into Dean’s from his upside-down perch on his hat. “Dean, you gotta hide me!”

                He whisked up onto the bench and pulled the loose end of Dean’s labcoat up over his head. With the material draped over his horns like the poles of a small, dragon-shaped tent, he started to eat his half of the sandwich.

                Dean couldn't stop another short chuckle. "This wouldn't have to do with rumors I've heard about the air conditioning, would it?"

                "Maybe," replied the lump, between bites of peanut butter.

                Dean sighed. "What did you do this time, Figment?"

                “It’s so hot inside today,” said the little dragon, indistinctly, through his sandwich. “Everyone’s so discombobulated… there’s a weird feeling, isn’t there? Everyone’s snapping at each other. I figured it must be the heat.”

                He swallowed. “I just wanted everyone to feel cooler. Maintenance aren’t allowed to turn the air conditioning up any more, but I thought, I’m not Maintenance, right? I’m Figment.”

                A thoughtful, peanut-buttered pause. “I guess Dr. Channing doesn’t see it that way. Also… I might have turned it up a little too much.”

                "Dr. Channing’s always like that. But now that you mention it, Ellie seemed a little cold to me when I said hello to her this morning." Dean drew back his lab coat, revealing a small purple dragon licking peanut butter off his stubby claws. "But points for trying, Figment. A noble effort. I think I have something that'll cheer you up."

                "A present?" Figment seemed to light up like a bulb. "For me? Oh goody!"

                Dean opened his lunchbox again, laughing and gently nudging the dragon away as he tried to poke his hooked snout in. "Easy, buddy," he said as he pulled out a brightly wrapped piece of candy. "You can have one, OK? I still don't think the third-floor bathroom is working after what happened last time."

                Reaching eagerly for the candy, Figment stopped momentarily and winced. “I sort of hoped everyone forgot about that...”

                He turned the neon wrapper over in his claws. “Thanks, Dean. You know I don’t _mean_ to mess stuff up. Somehow...” He puffed out a small sigh. “My ideas never work out how I mean them to anymore.”

                "Personally, I would love to have a miniature water park on the third floor," Dean said, his face falling as he saw sadness cross Figments face. "The only one we have nearby is the overpriced one for theme park guests." One hand started picking at his potato chips as the other scratched at the spot right under Figments steer-like horns. "I still don't see why Channing is so obsessed with keeping you under wraps. Yeah, I get that showing people how we store and recombine ideas is good and all, but I think the guests would love you."

                “Really? You think so?” It didn’t take much to lift Figment’s spirits. He perked up and leaned into Dean’s hand as the helpful fingers hit that hard-to-reach sweet spot. “I’d love to meet them too. Everyone in the lab is great, but all those thousands of guests come through here every day from all over the world, and I never get to talk to any of them.”

                He grinned, his eyes taking on the faraway dreamy sheen that usually meant that some heavy-duty daydreaming was going on inside. “Hey, Dean, imagine if _you_ were in charge of the Institute. I bet you could get Dr. Channing to give me a chance.”

                Dean inhaled sharply, coughing as a potato chip almost entered his windpipe. Figment nearly dropped his candy, tiny wings lifting him up as he thumped Dean on the back. "Gosh, is it really that exciting to ya?" he asked, as Dean cleared his throat.

 _"Me?_ Head of the Institute?! Figment, I'm already barely noticed as it is, there's no way could I hold the attention of an entire facility!"

                “Sure you could!” Figment landed on his shoulder, any idea of staying hidden completely forgotten, the flared end of the wrapper sticking up from his small fist like a microphone. “You’d be great! Ladies and gentlemen, presenting for your avid listening pleasure, the unparalleled Head of the Imagination Institute, the one, the only, _Professor_ Dean...”

                He stopped.

                “You know, you’ve never told me your last name.”

 _“Mr._ Finder,” said a very dry, _very_ unimpressed, very British voice, behind them.

                Figment bumped against Deans head as his shoulders shot up to his ears while Figment’s shot up to the middle of his long neck. He moved quickly, engulfing Figment in his baseball cap, wild orange hair flaring as the dragon made a small noise that sounded like a cross between an 'oof' noise and an echo of 'Finder?'

                "D- Doctor Channing! What a surprise to see you here-"

                "I could say the same of you, Dean, and _Figment._ I know you're under there, you little troublemaker."

                “We were just having lunch,” halted Figment, scootching out from under Dean’s cap. Channing focused on the bright candy wrapper in his hand.

                “So I see,” he said, coldly. “Dean, I seem to remember a specific memo about feeding our little friend here sweets. Shortly following the incident regarding the third-floor bathroom. Do you need me to jog your memory?”

                Dean hid the roll of his eyes by putting his cap back on. "No, sir. But it's just one, and it's not like there's anywhere else in the Institute where you can get them."

                Figment seemed to straighten up a little, even as Dean shrank back with every word.

                “Well, that’s rather the point, isn’t it?” said Channing. His voice dropped, becoming quiet and heavily condescending, something which most of his staff had learned to take as a giant glowing danger sign. “It’s just one, because everyone else, is doing as I asked.”

                Dean shrank back so much further he nearly had to grab on to the back of the bench to keep from falling over.

                "Aw, c'mon, Doc," Figment piped up, those tiny orange wings beating and lifting him up from Deans shoulder. "If you want, we can share it!"

                “Figment.” Channing was clearly clinging to the last shreds of his patience. “I have told you an _astronomical_ amount of times, to stay in the lab where you belong. You’re supposed to be the iconic symbol of this Institute, Lord help us, and this Institute is a place of science and learning, not practical jokes and consorting with clerical workers. You are supposed to represent something of worth. _Please,”_ he said, between his teeth, “act like it.”

                “But- but Blair always said-”

 _“Blair isn’t here,_ Figment!” The sentence shot out of the Director with the force of a slap, and for a second even Channing looked shocked to the core that he’d said it. He breathed a long measured breath and pinched his nose like a man in the grip of a sudden headache, but when he continued his voice was calm and cold and perfectly clear.

                “He’s gone, he’s not coming back, and sometimes I wish to God he’d taken you with him.”

                Dean felt his chest suddenly become tight. The weight on his shoulder increased as Figment slumped heavily. Those yellow eyes were wide, welling with thick tears, as the dragons small lower lip quivered a little.

                "Figment-"

                Dean felt the weight leave his shoulders as what felt like a small burst of air hit his ear. Figment was gone, Dean able to catch a quick sight of what looked like a small glowing ball of pink light disappear down the path back towards the Institute. Dean stumbled to his feet, eyes darting to his boss.

                "Did you really have to be that harsh?"

                "Look, Dean." Channing tucked a hand in his pocket. "You may have good intentions, but Figment is already unstable enough as he is without you encouraging him."

                Dean opened his mouth to speak, but Channing cut him off.

                "We'll discuss this later, in my office. Now, if you'll excuse me, I am _very_ late to a symposium on Emerging Scepticism and Truth in New Media. I'll send someone to get you when we can talk."

                Channing turned, hands stuffed in his pockets as he went in the opposite direction of the spark’s fading trail. That left Dean alone in the shade of the noon sun, with a half-empty lunchbox.

 

* * *

 

 

                Alan was having the _worst_ day.

                It had to be the heat. Systems Support could be stressful, often _was_ stressful, but for the most part it was usually nothing more than solving a series of problems caused by people not thinking properly before doing things to their computers that the computers really didn’t deserve. People were usually happy to sit back and let him fix things. They didn’t usually want to comment.

Today, things were weird. Everyone was in a foul mood. People were raising twice as many support tickets as usual, mostly little things and issues which were hardly worth an email, issues they should have been able to deal with themselves. People were _demanding_ that someone come and fix their problem, _now._ People were ringing the phones in Alan’s fairly crowded little department off the hooks, and by somewhere around two o’clock, he felt like he’d walked about eight miles back and forth across the building, speed-walked like someone trying to pack in a week’s worth of cardio because having to wait five minutes for him to show up seemed to be making people worse.

                And people were being… _blamey._ Most issues were a quick fix, the kind of thing Alan tended to log as RTFM or TUI errors. He didn’t exactly expect heartfelt thanks. He really would have appreciated it, though, if the people he’d literally just helped didn’t turn around and start berating him for causing their problems in the first place.

                This guy looked about on the verge of a stroke. He was Project Coordinator In Charge Of Something Alan Didn’t Care About in the sound lab, and he was definitely doing a good job of testing the soundproofing above their heads. He was really yelling. Alan was desperate enough at this point to try to make eye contact with anyone else walking past the desk in the hope that someone would rescue him before the guy either stabbed him with a protractor or keeled over dead, but so far the only people to stop had just watched, as if they were enjoying the show.

                “-no, I want you to do it again! I want to see exactly what you did, so when it screws up _again,_ I don’t have to wait for you to get off your ass and get up here!”

                “We- uh, we actually really prefer it if you let the support department resolve any issues for you, sir, the thing is that when people uh, try to fix things by just pressing random buttons it only makes things w-”

                 “Three times! Three times in one month this piece of crap locks up _right when_ I haven’t saved- right at the exact moment- do you think I’m stupid?? I know that remote view thing you people can do! I know you’re watching me!”

                Alan could feel the familiar sensation of his throat closing up to a pinhole. There were more people around them, now. There were so many people _listening._

“Okay- sir- we are not watching you, we really have better things to- I- I mean, don’t you think you’re being just a little-”

                “Don’t try that with me! Everyone knows you people are just making work for yourselves to keep your jobs down there!”

                “Ev- sir, we definitely aren’t-”

                “You probably take it in turns to break these pieces of junk so your little buddies can fix ‘em, and you think we don’t _know?_ You think we don’t know exactly what your game is?”

                Alan heard a shuffling noise behind him. He turned, and with a jolt of surprise saw that the audience, the group of silent onlookers, had somehow encircled the desk. They were murmuring. Quite a few of them were people he’d helped earlier that same morning. All of them, he realised, with a sickish sense of unreality, looked _pissed._

Faced with the growing crowd, and with the completely insane, hyperbolic and horribly _fitting_ phrase ‘lynch mob’ refusing to budge from the very front of his mind, Alan did the one thing any sensible person would do. He backed away, pushed desperately through the ring of unfriendly faces, and ran like hell.

                He didn’t get far.

 

* * *

 

 

               The guest portion of the Institute was towards what employees considered to be the back of the complex. Open to the guests of the neighbouring theme park, it was a simple automated drive through tour that ran guests on a path through all the public areas of the sensory labs. Ellie Fleet was one of the lucky ones with the job of herding guests in and loading them on.

                It was the midday rush. Guests were starting to come back from lunch, and were looking forward to more relaxing rides to settle their stomachs, a need that the slow, People-Mover nature of the Institute tour was more than able to satisfy. Come they did, and soon the line was out the door. The motion sensor on the sliding door had jammed, and as the minutes went by the Florida heat seemed to be winning the battle against the air conditioning and gaining territory. Ellie was starting to desperately wish that she could take off her lab jacket, but she’d seen their supervisor chewing out Q earlier for being brazen enough to roll up her sleeves.

                Stepping out into the sun, Ellie set down the slender metal frame of a sign display, reaching up and feeling the heat on her face as she slid a printed piece into the frame.

                ‘60+ minute wait from this point,’ it read. It took everything in her to not respond to the groans of the guests in the line behind her as she sidled her way back inside. She was so close to getting back out of the queue when a voice called, “Excuse me.”

                It had that tone of patronizing patience that Ellie had heard all too often. “What’s taking this line so long?”

                She took a deep breath and turned. The guest was a woman who wore one of those haircuts that said she would definitely fight you at the PTA meeting if you turned down her offer to join the latest multi-level marketing fad. “I’m sorry miss. We’re moving everyone through as fast as we can- “

                “I’m sure you are,” the woman said, with a voice that said she wasn’t sure at all. “We’ve been standing here for at least an hour, and my kids are starting to get rowdy. We paid good money to come here, the least you guys could do is earn it. What, did the ride break down and you’re not telling us?”

                “Ma’am, thank you for your patience, but like I said, we’re moving as quick as we can-“

                “If you are, you really ought to hire more people, if you’re going to work this slow.”

                The heat was building, and Ellie could feel her chest start to tense and a snap start to grow in her throat.

                “We are moving as fast as we can, ma’am,” she repeated, with tense patience. “Now, if you don’t mind, I-” Before she could say something regrettable, there was a hand on her shoulder.

                “Hey, Ellie.” Dean. Boy, was he a sight for sore eyes. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

                “A second, an hour, a year, just get me out of here,” hissed Ellie, _sotto voce._ Grabbing his arm, she swivelled him neatly between her and the fuming woman, smiling sweetly over his shoulder. “Sorry, ma’am, official Guest Services business, _have_ a Disney day.”

"Oh, goodness," Dean muttered to himself as Ellie used him like a human riot shield, parting the crowd like an ill-tempered, mouse-eared sea. Using Dean as a sort of moveable barrier, she manoeuvred him through the atrium door and into the small equipment room she’d retrieved the sign from, slamming the door with a sigh.

“Shee- _yeesh,_ is everyone just super-turbo-grouchy today, or is it just me?”

                "It’s not just you," Dean said, fixing his crooked glasses. "I just witnessed Channing getting the maddest I've ever seen him. He just told off-" the briefest of hesitations "-a very good friend of mine, a bit harsher than he should have."

                He leaned back against a caged shelf of cleaning supplies. "Listen, Ellie, I heard something earlier about a guy named Blair? I swear I've seen that name around here in the Institute, but I can't remember _where._ Help me out?"

                Ellie blinked at him. "You're- you're kidding, right? Blair? Blarion Mercurial?"

                She surveyed Dean's baffled face. "The Dreamfinder? The guy with the twenty-foot-tall statue out front? _That_ Blair?"

                "Wait, he's _that_ guy? I thought it was, I dunno, just some famous scientist, or a major donor or... something." He shrugged. "Look I'm usually not fully awake whenever I pass it in the morning. I guess I've just never really stopped to look at it."

                “Well, I can’t exactly give you chapter and verse,” said Ellie. “I flunked History. But… I _did_ read the cliff notes on this stuff for my job interview, so… okay. This guy basically _founded_ the Institute. When all those old-timey British scientists packed up and moved over here in, like, practically the stone age or something, they brought all his ideas and inventions with them. You know? ‘ _A dream can be a dream come true?’”_

                She tapped a teetering pile of surplus promotional materials at her elbow. "It’s on the brochure.”

                "Have I really not been paying that much attention?" Dean muttered to himself as he took a brochure, peeking over the lenses of his glasses to read the print. "And he disappeared? Just one day up and left?"

                Well, that explained a lot.

                "And nobody knows where he went," Ellie said in her best mysterious voice, wiggling her fingers for emphasis.

                "Huh... okay-" He was just about to ask another question, when there was a pounding at the door.

                "Where's one of those damned cast members when you need them?" said a muffled voice that the two vaguely recognized as a man who worked in the Taste lab. Always kind and eager to show pictures of his grandkids. He didn't seem to want to do that right now, however. "Hey! We got guests out here! Stop lazing around!"

“Alright, already!” Ellie seethed, smacking the metal grille of the door a solid _thWUnNK_ with the flat of her palm. “I swear to Jiminy Cricket, Dean-o, I’m gonna wind up sockin’ some soccer mom right in the kisser before half-shift. _Puh-pow.”_

She dealt the grille another blow, and recoiled, rubbing her knuckles. “Ow. Anyway, I should probably get going before Gramps out there has a conniption. If you want, I can-”

                Before she could finish, the ground- the dusty, tiled floor of the equipment room- bucked under their feet. A resounding _sound-_ not explosion or siren but a deep, bassy knell that entered the brain through the ribs and bypassed the ears altogether- throbbed through the air, shaking plaster from the ceiling and sending Ellie reeling, grabbing the grille for support. Dean was knocked back as well, into a group of brooms. Their handles dug into his shoulder blades as he braced against a shelf. Both of them felt their ears pop.

_“What the heck was that??”_

                The thrum in Dean’s chest dropped into his stomach as he found his voice. "Whatever it was, it didn't sound good-"

                The banging on the door began anew. _"Open this door right now! I know you're in there!"_

                "We need to find Figment," Dean voiced the first instinctual thought that came to his head. "I'm starting to think maybe this isn't just the humidity."

                The handle on the door was jiggling

                "Give us a _second_ , geez!" Ellie replied. She was about to bang on the grille again, but clearly remembered the lesson she'd just learned minutes prior. This was the maddest Dean had ever seen the usually happy-go-lucky cast member. She grabbed a broom, and was about to hit the grille with it when he took her by the shoulders.

                "Ellie, I need you to stay with me and stay positive. We need to get out of here and find Figment."

                She blinked at him, then shook her head, hard, as if trying to dislodge a dense thicket of cobwebs, nearly whipping him across the face with her flying loops of hair. Probably, it had been the right thing for him to do. Definitely, as her head came up there was a strangeness about her pupils, a moment when her eyes had looked a fraction _…_ _not-right,_ hazy, the pupils too small. She steadied herself on him, and put a shaky hand to her head.

                “Huh… whuh- find _who-_ now? Figment as in... the _dragon?”_

                She looked up at him properly, and now she was one-hundred-percent Ellie again, her eyes wide and alive and full of curiosity and concern. “Don’t you think you’re taking that brochure just a teensy bit too seriously? Maybe that was an- an earthquake! Or a new fire alarm-”

                Dean squinted. He’d seen the look in Ellie’s eyes, before she’d suddenly seemed to be herself again. Now he knew for sure something wasn't right. And a part of him, one he wasn't fully aware of, was terrified.

                A fusillade of heavy thumps and what sounded like a few actual enraged kicks on the door behind them startled Ellie out of her guessing. _“Orrr_ maybe we shouldn’t hang around to find out. Other door- c’mon!”

                She yanked Dean by the hand, and he had no choice but to let her drag him between a filing cabinet and an empty display case. A door, and Ellie threw it open for them to come face to face with a security guard. His eyes looked like Ellie’s had, his momentary surprise quickly setting in to anger.

_"Hey!"_

                "Pardon us!" Dean said as they both broke into a run down the hallway, feet frantic against the linoleum tile.

                He felt it before he saw it. The faintest glimmer of pink out of the corner of his eye, rounding a corner and disappearing down the hall.

                "This way!" Dean grabbed Ellie’s arm and changed their course, chasing the ball of light.

                He could hear the guard’s feet thudding after them. From the noise, one angry pursuer had already turned into at least three. It didn’t matter a light that there wasn’t any reason _why_ they were being chased, that they were both employees, that they’d done nothing wrong. Being chased was a basic human terror. In the moment, there was nothing to do but run.

                Together, they hurtled into the double-doors under the glowing green emergency sign, bouncing them open and spilling them both out into the hot sunlight. As soon as Dean slammed the heavy doors closed, Ellie rammed the broom she’d snatched from the equipment room across both handles, locking the security guards into the hallway behind them. The furious rattling and yells faded behind them as they jogged down the anonymous concrete backlot strip.

                “And I thought today was gonna be boring,” panted Ellie.

                Dean sped ahead, having to fight to see the spark in the Florida sunshine. It moved in a darting, fluttering manner, as if it was just as eager to get away as they were. He didn't know how he knew it, didn't have time to think if how he knew it, but he _knew_ it was Figment. Scared, alone, hurt- and the thought made Dean’s heart feel the same.

  _"Figment!!"_

                A small _whuff_ of pink and a spark or two, and Figment stumbled into sight like a small lavender DeLorean, tumbling orange horn over wing. He seemed surprised.

                “Holy macaroni,” breathed Ellie, scrabbling for her phone. “He’s _real??”_

                “Dean!” Figment dropped onto Dean’s shoulder, grabbing both his cheeks and staring into his eyes. “You’re okay? You _look_ okay...” He pulled up one of Dean’s eyelids with a small paw, then set his head against the side of his temple, listening intently. “You sound okay. You’re okay!”

                Dean blinked rapidly as Figment knocked his glasses askew in his inspection. "Yeah, I'm okay, I'm me. I'm glad you're okay-"

                “Hey, Figment!” Both Figment and Dean looked up, only to get a dazzling eyeful of Ellie’s camera flash. “Whoops. Sorry. I guess it’s kind of dark… all… of a sudden…”

                It was. The sunshine that had been so blinding just a few minutes before had faded to a leaden hush, like the false twilight before a storm. Dean looked up. The clouds were crazy, dark loops and whorls of thunderheads gathering over the glassy peaks of the Institute as if the whole place was some awful lightning rod. They hardly looked like normal clouds. Purplish-greenish and sullen, they barely looked… real.

                The sky rumbled like a dark laugh as they felt the air grow heavier. Dean voiced what both of them were thinking aloud.

                "What the heck is going on here?"

                "Blair's machine would never do something like this," Figment said, from Dean’s shoulder.

                "Blair- oh! Dreamfinder! I know who that is now-" Dean’s pride lasted only a second. "Wait, his what?"

                "The thingamabob! Dreamfinder made this nifty machine that made his imagination come to life. It's how he found me!" The little dragon smiled at the memory "I thought it was gone, but I saw it in there! But I've never seen it do that."

                "How have I not heard of this guy?!"

                "I was going to get help, but then I found you!" Dean got his cheeks squished yet again. "And-" Figment zipped over to Ellie, offering a hand. "That's me! I'm Figment! Nice to meet’cha!”

                “I’m Ellie!” Ellie shook the small paw enthusiastically. “Salutations, Figment, it’s an honor to meet ya! I’ve got a hat with you on and everything!”

                "Aw, neat!" Figment said. "I asked if I could get one, but they don't fit me-"

                Another deep rumble lumbered its way through the air.

                "Figment, you have any idea what this is all about?" Dean asked.

                The little dragon drew a deep breath.

                “Well, I guess I was a little upset...”

* * *

 

                Having no physical form was a little like being in a dream. Figment could see everything around him, was aware of everything, but there was a vagueness to the world- a softness to the edges of things, and a tantalizing sense that if he reached out he would be able to touch them… but he couldn’t quite reach out.

                What Doctor Channing had said felt heavy inside of him, in the stomach he didn’t currently have. He drifted, not particularly heading anywhere, only aware that he was in the Institute. It felt like home, the only one he had… now.

                _Where did you go, Dreamfinder?_

_Why did you leave me behind?_

The one thing Figment could be sure of was that Blair was okay. He had to be, because he, Figment, still existed. When being apart felt hard to bear, he held tightly to that fact- in himself, he was proof that Blair was alive and well… somewhere.

                Not heeding where he drifted, the unhappy little dragon might have pondered the whole day away, if a sudden pang, almost a pain, hadn’t struck out of nowhere. Snapping out of his funk, he focused- as much as a little pink ball of dream energy could focus, at least.

                Something was terribly wrong. Usually, the Institute felt alive, buzzing with thought and energy, the minds of the scientists and guests and cast mingling to make a bright _glow_ of human potential that Figment often thought must be visible from space. But as the humidity rose and the clouds started to gather, the sulky snappiness he’d seen in everyone earlier in the day grew into something worse, something tense and oppressive and nearly painful. Figment had felt something like it before, once.

                Once… or twice.

                The little glow trembled uncertainly over the taller of the two pyramids. Doctor Channing would probably still be mad at him, but he needed to know- if he didn’t already- that something was wrong, wrong, _wrong._ The only thing Figment could think of was Blair, and the last time he’d felt something like this. He had to warn people- he didn’t have a choice.

                _Blair would… if he was here._

So Figment zipped towards the main atrium, and was just about to make a beeline for Channing’s office when it struck him how quiet and still the space was. The few people in sight stood here and there in weird, slumped poses, hardly moving. They all seemed to be watching the dais- a raised half-circle platform for events and announcements- but the stage was empty.

                Then-

                A terrible crackling, a jagged spiky bassy noise that hurt to listen to. The air above the dais flickered. There was a shape- nothing- two shapes- a moment of eye-hurting bewilderment when there seemed to be both at once- and then all at once there was _something,_ something that struck a bolt of terror straight to the heart of what Figment was and sent him racing, speeding for help.   

* * *

 

                “It was Doctor Channing,” said Figment, who was flitting back and forth anxiously, biting on his small paw, “but he had- he was holding Blair’s thingamijig- his Mesmonic Converter- except it looked _weird-_ and smelled bad- and Blair smashed it to pieces! And- and his shadow was all... _werrrrrghhh.”_

“Werrgh?” tried Ellie.

                “No, no, _werrrrrghhh.”_ insisted Figment, waggling his fingers urgently. “All kinds of spooky, and _eeuuugh."_

 _“Eeeaugh?”_ Dean had his own go at it.

                “Exactly!” Figment inexplicably snapped his fingers.

                “Channing can have his moments but-” Dean stopped talking for a moment, as somehow the sentence tried to grapple with his heart. It passed as quickly as it came. “But I don’t think he’d do something like this.”

                They all looked up at the clouds for a moment.

                “So, what do we do now? Call the police or something?” Ellie asked, pulling up her phone again as Figment sat on her head, head tilting as he watched her try to open it. “All my bars are gone, Dean. No reception.”

                The clouds overhead seemed to thicken.

                “I think… I think we need to go back in there,” Dean concluded. “Figment, do you remember where you saw the mesm- mesmo- the thingamajig?”

                “In the- the atrium of Doctor Channing’s lab,” Figment jittered. “Last time, Blair destroyed it to release dream power across the whole place! If- if we can get hold of it again, I bet we can fix this. Even if it is-”

                He cut himself off, shuddering, and launched himself from Ellie’s head to hover above them.

                “It’s this way!”

                The two followed the imaginary dragon as he zipped along the building, around the back of what Dean figured had to be Dr. Brainard’s lab. His thoughts couldn’t help but turn to Alan. He hoped he was safe, for more reasons than if he was under, it meant Dean would be out of a best friend. They came to a freight door up the metal walkway, and Dean grabbed the handle. The garage- like door wouldn’t shift an inch. “Great.”

                “We can just find another door,” Ellie started to say, looking back. “If we go around to the back of Szalinski’s lab-"

                Dean didn’t hear her, nor did Figment, whose attention had been caught by Dean. Figment knew that look anywhere. Dean was getting an idea.

                "Figment-" He pointed up. "Can you get in through the air conditioning?"

                “Okie-dokie-smokie!” The grille, presumably designed by people who had watched at least one action movie in their lives, was too small for a human, but it wasn’t too small for something the size of Figment, especially not when that something could fly. The little dragon fluttered up to the hatch, prised the flimsy plastic slats up on one side and pushed it the rest of the way with his snout, and shouldered inside.

                Less than a minute, and the freight door clicked open to reveal a chilled and shivering Figment, who shot through and wrapped himself up in the loose fold of Dean’s labcoat. “I-i-it fuh-feels a lot c-c-colder whuh-when you’re i-i-inside it!!”

                The air-con wasn't the only thing that was cold. As the door opened, a billow of mist poured out in a way that neither human nor dragon should have been surprised by, given the theatrical amusement park they were standing in. The difference was, this was a dingy backlot freight truck access, and secondly, the mist was a sickly, damp green. It seeped into Dean’s socks and made his shoes feel like he’d just stepped into a swamp, and it clung to the floor while never seeming to fully dissipate. He swallowed thickly, holding Figment close.

                “Can we do this?” Ellie said, sounding more like she was trying to convince herself than the others. “We can do this, right?”

                “O-of course.” Dean found the words, stepping inside. “Simple, we just get to Channing’s lab, turn the thingamajig off, and boom, day saved.”

                Making sure to roll the door shut behind them, the team ventured in. Figment wiggled out of Dean’s arms to float close to his shoulder as they went.

                “We just have to get through here, and up the main stairs,” he whispered. The room ahead was a relatively small open-plan office, full of computer workstations. Most of them had two monitors, the wide banks of the screens shielding the occupants from view. Dean crouched and ventured forwards, Ellie following his lead, as they slowly navigated the twists and turns of the cluttered floorspace.

                The hush in the room was eerie. Through the desks, Dean could see motionless legs, dangling shoes, the occupants sitting in their chairs as if anything was normal, except they were hardly moving or making a sound. The only noise was the racing click of keys from all sides. Motioning for the others to follow, he eased up against the corner of a desk and peered gingerly around it, and was just about to give the all-clear when he happened to glance up and spot, just inside his field of vision, the desk’s occupant.

                It was Alan. He was awake, at least as far as his eyes were open and his hands were moving, rattling across the keyboard at full speed. His shoulders were slumped and his eyes- the pupils pinpricks- were riveted to the screen, and there was a dead and distant glaze in them, like the windows of an empty house.

                "Alan-" Dean covered his mouth the moment he said the name, but Alan didn't seem to notice. No one did.

                "Dean?" Ellie said, somewhere behind him. "C'mon, let’s go!"

                "Hang on-" Dean peered over the edge of the desk again. He couldn't see what Alan was typing, just a glow that seemed to match the fog around them; a bright, eerie green that made his friend’s face look sullen.

                "Alan," Dean whispered. A pair of yellow eyes followed, also peering over the edge of the desk as Dean raised himself up. "It’s me, Dean. Can you hear me?"

                “Go away, Dean,” said Alan, and the small purple snout hooked over the edge of the desk at Dean’s side started in surprise. The fog, the horrible heavy feeling in the air, the passive captive people… Figment had seen this all before, but last time the victims of the fog had been moaning, speechless zombies. He hadn’t expected _words._

Dean’s friend didn’t look at either of them, didn’t look away from the glowing screen. His voice was low and expressionless.

                “I’m working. I have to get this done.”

                Checking to make sure the coast was still clear, Dean rounded the desk, craning his head to see what Alan was working on so intently his fingers hadn’t stopped moving even as he spoke to him. All Dean could catch was Alan seemed to be on a forum of some sort, the header on the green tinged screen was one of those all-seeing eye symbols. Dean wasn’t very computer-fluent, but talking to Alan had given him more than enough info to know how to recognize a conspiracy site when he saw one.

                “Alan, what the heck are you doing? This isn’t you-”

                “Isn’t it?” asked Alan, in the same blank monotone. “Sooner or later you have to ask yourself, who am I kidding? A bachelors’ in film production, a student loan the size of a small country’s budget deficit, and I’m sitting here every day helping people six times over my pay grade find their login password. And then I don’t sleep because I’m going home and agonizing over stuff I can’t make because I can’t talk and nobody would care, anyway. I mean, why even bother? If I ever had a shot, I missed it.”

                He hit post on the wall of text he’d been writing, and immediately shifted to a new tab. This one seemed to be full of blurry photos of celebrities. _POST YOUR REPTILIAN ELITE PICS HERE!!_

                “I don’t know why it took me so long to realise,” he mumbled, beginning to type again. “Maybe because I didn’t want to. Anyway, you should go. I’m behind enough as it is.”

                Dean’s face fell, remembering the times Alan had confided those exact fears to him, mostly on particularly raw bus rides home. “Sometimes the path we think we should take isn’t always the one we end up following-”

                He touched Alan’s arm as Ellie fidgeted on the ground behind them. Figment smiled as Dean started to remind him of a certain someone. “The Alan I know is clever, smart and funny. Who cares if you’re charismatic? If you have something you care about and do it with passion, people will listen- but first, we need to you get out of here. Alan, _listen to me-”_

“This isn’t...”

                The miserable blank on Alan’s face started to crack, a small frown landsliding into a bigger one as he stared at the screen. Now, he sounded like he was struggling, fighting to answer a question he couldn’t quite remember. “This… this guy was yelling… and then everyone went all Romero on me, and I… don’t know what I… what…”

                He blinked hard, shook his head, then all of a sudden started and pulled his hands off the keys as if they’d turned red-hot. _“What the hell am I writing??_ Chemtrails, the moon landing-” He switched tab after tab, frantically. “Subliminal advertising, creationism- flat earth theory?? _Dean!”_

He swung round on his friend, grabbing him by the shoulders. His eyes were their usual grey-green, horrified and bewildered and _alive._

“We’ve got to get out of here!”

                Dean had never been so happy to see Alan freaking out. “Wait wait wait-” His grip on him tightened as Alan tried to get up out of his seat. “Hang on a second-”

                “Hey!” Figment spoke up as Dean dragged Alan to join their hiding place behind his desk. “You freed him!”

                Dean knew exactly what was coming. “Figment, no-”

                Too late, the little dragon was already up in Alan’s face, offering a hand. “Hi! I’m Figment! Dean’s told me a lot about you!”

                Alan went very still.

                “Dean,” he said, very calmly. “Are you seeing a flying purple dragon in front of me right now?”

                "Yes I am, and before I go on, I need you to know the flying purple dragon can _hear_ you too," Dean said, as Ellie snapped a picture of Alan’s face.

                "This is Figment. And he's real."

                "As real as an imaginary spark can get!" the little dragon boasted, proudly.

                “That’s… great,” said Alan, weakly, watching Figment like someone might watch a loose bear wandering towards them. “Cool. Definitely… the kind of thing I expected when I got out of bed this morning.”

                “And I’m Ellie,” whispered Ellie, shaking his hand from her hiding spot under the desk. “You work with Dean, right?”  
                “Uh, no, I’m actually in IT-”

                “Oh, neat! Hey, can you take a look at my phone? It keeps doing this thing where-”

                “Sorry-” interrupted Alan, “-it’s very nice to meet you, I don’t mean to be rude, but- could one of you maybe tell me _what the heck is going on?”_

                Figment opened his mouth, but Dean gently nudged him aside. "Maybe I should take this one, buddy." Figment only looked sad for a second before he took to sitting on Deans shoulder. "Long story short, Figment says he saw Channing with some sort of mesmest-mosmi-"

                "Mesmonic Converter," both Ellie and Figment offered, at the same time.

                "Yeah, that, and while I'm not completely sure exactly what that is, we do know its probably what’s been making everyone cranky and causing all, well, this." Dean gestured vaguely at the fog around them. "We're heading to Channing’s lab to shut it down, and hopefully that will fix all this."

                He paused, surveying Alan’s face. "Take your time, I know this is a lot."

                “Maybe don’t take _too_ much time,” said Ellie, nervously. She was watching the blank row of faces across the way, Alan’s mesmerized colleagues. They all looked pretty deeply under, but it wasn’t too hard to remember the furious expressions of the security guards, or the guests before that. “The locals seem kinda restless...”

                Alan scrabbled in his desk drawer, pulling out his ID lanyard. “No, no, I’m good, let’s go.”

                Dean exchanged a look with Figment. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

                “Okay?” Alan had already started to edge along the row of desks. “No, are you stupid? I’m scared out of my mind and I’m pretty sure I’ve lost my grip on reality, but I also don’t want to get lynched by a bunch of hypnotized Helpdesk nerds, thank you. We’re going now.”

                Dean gave both Ellie and Figment a look before got up, following after Alan. In retrospect this had probably been a brilliant idea. Systems Support had clearance to go almost anywhere in the building. If anyone could get them into Channing’s lab, it was probably Alan.

                Carefully the group crept towards the door, staying close to the fog that clung to the floor. Daring a glance, Dean could see everyone else in the room seemed to be doing the exact thing Alan had; typing long blocks of text on web pages and comment sections, all of them having to do with a pseudoscience of some sort. Remaining quiet, they seemed to be getting away without any of the living bots noticing them.

                A security guard passed outside the door as Dean reached for the handle. He waited for him to pass before turning to the other three.

                "Okay, so, Channing’s lab is to our left, down the hall, then to the right if I'm correct. I say we make a break for it."

                Figment gulped and nodded, sticking close to Dean’s shoulder. Ellie had been rummaging in the cable ties under the last desk they’d passed, and came up with a long blocky power strip, trailing a plug. It wasn’t the most deadly weapon, but with the cord wrapped around her fist, it looked like a fairly solid argument.

                “Ready,” she hissed.

                Alan didn’t reply right away. As Dean reached up to crack the door, he touched his arm.

                “Thanks,” he said, quietly.

                Dean gave a small smile “Glad to have you back, buddy.”

 

* * *

 

                Nigel Channing had been the most delicious meal Doubt had had in years. The man was practically a living breathing ball of anxiety, a spring wound so tight that even the slightest disturbance could set off. It had been that easy; just a little nudge and the Chairman unravelled, wide open for Doubt to sink in their icy grip. Once their new business partner had secured their shiny new food source, Doubt left the Chairman in a dense cloud of fear and uncertainty. They drifted to the floor, breathing in the green fear-fog, and the sharp inhale sent them upwards. Shadows twisted and curled together, forming human limbs and coat tails, all of it topped off with a top hat.

                That Dreamfinder had been the biggest hurdle Doubt had ever faced. _But you had to admit,_ it thought to itself as its teeth curled into a smile. _This form sure did radiate power._

Doubt needlessly straightened its lapels before they formed back into its body, walking around to get the hang of having two legs again. The real Channing was silent, slumped over for now. Doubt had to admit maybe they had eaten a little more than they should have. He’d be up sooner or later. Then they could start asking the Chairman for what he knew about where their nemesis had disappeared off to.

                Their green eyes shifted to the other side of the lab, where another, different Nigel Channing stood in front of a large spherical machine, tossing a bulky helmet from hand to hand.

                “Zeitgeist...” Doubt’s voice was low, permanently set to sinister. “Have you figured that thing out yet?”

                “Oh, I’m getting there.” It wasn’t Channing’s voice. Maybe that voice was _there,_ the set-dressing of each word, but it was layered with something deeper and far more unpleasant, a tone that crawled up the listener’s backbone to the brain and lodged there, giggling.

                The thing turned, flashing a grin with an intensity and venom that Nigel Channing had never approached in his life. There were too many teeth in it. “It’s outdated junk, but there’s such a lot of potential… we just have to bring it up to the _now.”_

                Doubt moved to his side, taking the helmet and turning it over in their shadowy hands. Doubt thought, thinking back to when they and Dreamfinder had been one and the same. Bits and pieces, they could remember that they had leeched off his mind. That sickeningly bright mind. But this, oh this machine would be put to far better use than creating dream power. The thought of guests unwittingly lining up only to be plugged into this made a giddy feeling bubble up in Doubts core.

                "And everyone in the building is under?" they asked their partner.

                “Will you stop worrying?” snapped the other Channing. “Normally, I’d be all about pointless misgivings, but in your case it’s really starting to get on my nerves. Of _course_ they’re all under. Do you think any ordinary human mind stands a chance against such a potent cocktail of doubt and- well- _me?_ Do I need to remind you that this is one of the _smart_ ones?” He prodded Channing’s slumped body with a foot.

                "Need I remind _you,"_ Doubt replied, "that we don't fully know for sure if the one man who can potentially stop us is still out there somewhere?"

                The Zeitgeist rolled Channing’s eyes as he set the helmet down.

                "What is it with you and that guy?” he said. “He's no problem. He's gone, and there's no way that weak little spark could do anything even if it shows up."

                On the floor the real Channing started to stir, but both knew there was nothing the Chairman could do.

                Doubt was about to argue further when there was a loud _thud_ just outside the door to the lab.

                Both entities turned, sharply, and the Zeitgeist hissed.

                “That’s not one of mine,” he snarled. “I smell… _freethinking._ Is that the spark?”

                Another _crash_ outside the door, a muffled conversation.

                "Ellie!"

                "I was aiming for his shins!"

                "Oh my God- Alan!"

                "Just give me a _second-"_

                Another crash. A whiz of energy, and then the innocuous beep of an entry keypad.

                The double doors opened and three humans tumbled through, Dean somehow landing at the top of the pile as Figment charged in after the group. The legs of a passed-out security guard were visible for a moment before the doors shut.

                Doubt’s eyes turned to the Zeitgeist as Dean popped up. "Channing! Stop this right now!"

                “Oh, I’m sorry…” The thing wearing Channing’s form grinned even wider. His eyes looked like Alan’s had, like the guards’- too pale, hazy, the pupils inkspots at the centres- but there was something even worse about this. There was no touch of humanity struggling in those eyes. It was like looking into a well, all the way down, and Figment’s small claws tightened in the back of Dean’s shirt as he realised that this wasn’t Doubt or one of his puppets at all. This was something _new._

"Dean," whispered Ellie, leaning in as they watched a drip of something black slide down the side of their boss’s face. "I don't think that's Channing."

                “Doctor Channing isn’t here right now, but if you’d like to leave a message...”

                “It _is_ the spark,” whispered Doubt, spreading out dark fingers and rising behind the Zeitgeist like a living shadow. “Well, well. It’s been a while, you little monster. _Where’s the Dreamfinder?”_

                "Dreamfinder isn't here," Dean said, sounding about ten times braver than he felt. "So you'll have to deal with us."

                Doubt sunk into the shadows, darting like a shot between the Zeitgeist’s legs and across the lab, rising up and arcing over the two and giving Dean a straight look into its jagged, bright teeth.

 _"Liar!!_ If that meddlesome spark is here, that means he can't be far behind!"

                “I told you,” sniggered the Zeitgeist. “Your precious nemesis probably kicked the bucket already. He’s human. Humans die all the time. They’re very, very good at it. Falling over themselves to come up with new ways to do it, take it from me.”

                “He’s not dead!” bristled Figment, into the Doubt’s shapeless face. “He’s- he’s just-”

                “Gone?” finished the Zeitgeist, advancing, his face a mask of mock-sympathy under the dark goo slipping slowly from his hairline, like thick blood from a wound. “What a shame.”

                Doubt scowled, but relented, easing back. Dean realized he'd been holding his breath. "And if he's smart," Zeitgeist continued, pacing a little and surveying the ragtag team, "he'll never come back. The world has changed too much, become far too complex for an old coot like him. Those ones are always the easiest to fool. Anyway-" They tucked their hands behind their back. "What makes you think some minimum-wage workers like you have the authority to stop us? Because you're righteous? Good? Because you believe the worthless sentiments a corporate company peddles under the guise of story?"

                Alan pushed Ellie behind him and stabbed a finger at the Channing-thing. He was shaking with rage.

                _“You_ made me write _lies_ on the _Internet!!”_

                “Um, the ‘righteous’ thing? I’ll go with that,” said Ellie, holding up her power strip like a tour guide’s umbrella. “But I’m mostly along for the ride.”

                "And I'm here because nobody hurts my friends," Dean declared. "Real or imaginary."

                "What he said!" Figment added proudly, straightening up on Dean's arm.

                "Now, I'm only going to ask this once.” Dean tried to look as menacing as he could muster. “Leave the Institute alone, and never come back."

                Doubt’s face did the closest thing it could to a buckle, and then it burst out laughing, a sound that filled the room with a deep bassy tone that went straight to the chest.

                "I was really hoping that would work," Dean muttered, as Alan gave him a pointed look.

              "Well, partner," Doubt said, once it caught its unneeded breath, looking to the Zeitgeist. "Forget Channing, I think we should break this one first."

                The Zeitgeist smiled and snapped his fingers. From the gloom, the corners and the odd angles of lab equipment all around, Dr. Channing’s staff stepped out in a dead-eyed, fog-shrouded ring. Ellie yelped as two of them grabbed for her. Swinging her makeshift weapon on its cord, she clocked one of them straight in the chin, but the other swatted it out of her hands and pulled her arms roughly behind her. Alan made a grab for the power strip as it clattered across the ground, but another lab assistant grabbed the back of his shirt and slammed him against the side of a solid generator unit, pinning him there.

                “Why not? I have to admit I was expecting more of a challenge.”

                He reached out and clamped his hand directly over Ellie’s mouth. She struggled furiously, squeaked a battery of noises under the blackened fingers, but eventually lost the fight and breathed out in a gasping huff.  
                “Hah...” The Zeitgeist curled his hand around her escaping breath, and _changed._ The shape shrank, twisted, the colors shifted, clothes and hair ravelling down, and before Ellie’s appalled eyes another Ellie smiled back and winked at her with clouded, sharp-pupiled eyes.

                “Gullible, easily-led, totally incapable of appreciating how useless her one talent really is in this world. Optimism. _Pfeh.”_ The Ellie-thing spat. “The last refuge of the sheep. _‘Maybe the slaughterhouse is a nice place after all! Can’t be that bad, right?’”_

The Zeitgeist whipped suddenly round on Alan, catching his shocked exhale in a fist that shifted and warped around it. A ghastly moment, and Alan found himself staring into his own smirking face.

                “Now, you could be one of mine. I can smell it. What’s wrong, little _sceptic?_ Cat got your tongue?”

                “Leave- them- alone!” Alan managed. He sounded like he was hyperventilating.

                “What a hero,” said the Zeitgeist. He turned away, utterly dismissive, his shape sliding fluidly back into that of the Chairman. “So much for the ‘happiest place on Earth.’”

                Figment had been grabbed by a cloudy-eyed man who looked like he was a security guard. His massive hands pinned Figments wings to his back, and the strong grip made it impossible to wiggle out. Dean had been powerless to help, as another guard had grabbed him. Doubt whipped around up the dais, unable to hold back a small laugh as it pulled down a heavy switch. The machine hummed to life, pistons firing and gears clanking in a bellow of smoke.

                "Now, if you're all employees of this fabulous Institution..." The Zeitgeist’s voice was dripping with as much sarcasm as his face currently was just plain dripping. "You all must know about this hunk of junk. Using dreams to make matter, and all that bunk." He turned as the machine made an impressive chug, the fog in the room starting to deviate into an intake vent as the rickety machine pumped even harder.

                "Rhyme not intended. Obviously past its prime, but my partner had a fabulous idea."

                Doubt flicked a few more switches, and the machine turned over.

                "What about matter from _fear?"_

                Doubt beckoned with a slender finger, and Dean was pushed forward.

                "Hey! Let go of me!"

                "Or what?" The Zeitgeist smiled. "A sorry excuse for an Imagineer like you is a perfect test subject."

                Dean was tossed into a chair. Doubt stopped the rolling wheels with its foot, as it already had the helmet in hand.

                "No..." Dean struggled, but there was no breaking free. His heart felt like ice as the helmet slipped over his head, darkening his vision. Through the goggles, he could see Figment struggling, those yellow eyes wide as he tried to break free of the guard holding him.

                Dean sighed. He'd failed. Granted, his plan hadn't been the best in the first place. Charge in and hope for the best? Good strategy, genius.

                The helmet thrummed around him.

                What was he even doing here in the Institute, or even putting his life on the line for it? He was a nobody with a life barely worth remembering. He had three friends in this world, and one of them was his imaginary dragon.

                Wait, _his_ dragon?

                Idiot, he wasn't yours, he was Dreamfinder’s, and if he could see him right now he'd probably be so disappointed.

                He was just Dean. Lowly, tired. So very tired. Why was he so tired? He felt like he was asleep, had been asleep.

                The helmet sparked.

                He had to wake up. He had to wake up. He couldn't go to sleep again. He was a dreamer. He was a doer. He was a bright spark that could not be repressed.

                "Shut it off!!" Doubt bellowed. "For Fear’s sake, _SHUT IT OFF!!"_ The converter was shuddering and sparking, the green lightning licking it now a brilliant blue. The air was so charged that Ellie’s hair was lifting from her head.

                _He had to wake up. He had to wake up..._

                "Dean!!" Figment clamped his little teeth down on the guards hand, and the man yowled, letting go immediately in surprise. Figment pumped his wings harder than he ever had before, so focused on Dean that the dragon wasn't aware of the bright purple aura that had grown around him. He reached out a clawed hand, speeding for Dean.

The metal sphere buckled and groaned as its metal folded like paper. Contact between dragon and human, and then there was a bright flash and a sound that split the very air, ringing in everyone's ears.

                Then Blair Mercurial, the Dreamfinder, woke up.


	2. Zeitgeist Rising

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dreamfinder is back, but so is the Doubt and they've got a new partner: the Zeitgeist. With a storm of fear growing overhead, The team must venture through an enslaved EPCOT park with a target on their backs. Why did Dreamfinder erase himself, and what the heck is going on with innoventions?

                In the aftermath of the implosion, the lab resonated with echoes, raining dust and bits of ceiling tile pattering across the floor as pieces of the Mesmonic Converter’s larger half slammed down amongst them like small meteorites. The green fog that had powered the corrupted machine whipped up into a murky haze through which it was hard to see anything at all. The lab was like a nightmare theatre gone mad, shadows and blurry shapes everywhere, and a bright high tone jangling in the air.

Ellie crawled out from beneath the bathtub-sized piece of domed metal sheeting that had protected her like a crab shucking its shell. Her hair was standing up around her head in a mad halo, and as she reached Alan and grabbed his shoulder, he yelped out loud as a _zap_ of static electricity jumped between them.

                “What,” she yelled, over the singing in her ears, “in Pete’s name just _happened?”_

                She winced and ducked, yanking Alan down behind the twisted metal remains of the Converter as Doubt’s screech of fury cut through the confusion overhead.

_“It’s him! The Dreamfinder! Get him!!”_

                Figment wheezed out a cartoonish puff of smoke from his mouth, and it took a moment before it registered. He felt it, a feeling he hadn't felt in a long, long time. Before he could dwell on it Figment felt an arm around him, scooping him up like a football.

                A guard came out of the fog at them, and Figment yelped. The person holding him faked left, nearly stumbling as they went right, but they found their balance.

                Ellie felt a hand grab her shoulder.

                "Up and at 'em, Ellie, c'mon!" It sounded like Dean, but it was _different_ somehow. She managed to grab hold of him, and they dragged Alan behind, heading for the door.

                From the noise behind them, Ellie could have sworn that they had most of Dr. Channing’s lab staff on their heels. She felt sick and shaky and for the first time found herself wondering why she and Dean hadn’t gone under with everyone else. Everything had been normal- hot and irritable and a bit off-kilter but normal- up until that moment in the equipment room. Now reality had taken a sharp right turn into Crazytown, USA, and she could only guess that all of her coworkers in Guest Services were standing around somewhere huffing up green fog or stuck playing type-monkeys like Alan had been, and why wasn’t she? Why wasn’t Dean-

                The fog-zombie closest on their tail made a grab at her, fingers whisking through her hair. She yipped and put on a burst of speed. Maybe this wasn’t the exact moment for critical analysis.

                The stairs to the second storey uncurled in front of them, green mist pouring sluggishly down the steps like a Stygian river, and the three of them pounded up and around the curve into a wide, mostly-empty area usually reserved for press events. Figment wriggled free and shot forwards, tiny wings working overtime.

                “Behind here! There’s a door!”

                There was. It was a very small door, artfully set flush into the corner and half-hidden in the shadows of the mural that stretched around the space, but it was big enough, and they crowded through it just a hairsbreadth before the first of their pursuers made it up the stairs.

                The door slid shut behind them, plunging everyone into darkness. They waited, holding their breath. Ellie’s hand scrambled in the dark, finding the nearest other hand, and she clung to it.

                A few tense, terrifying moments, but there was no sound. No banging, no voices, just the sound of four voices simultaneously exhaling with relief. It seemed that no-one had seen them slip away.

                "Everyone here?" A voice cut through the darkness, and Ellie jumped before she realized it was Dean's. It sounded so different, so self-assured, that it took a moment for her to recognize it.

                "Ellie?"

                "Here." She found her voice, squeezing the hand.

                "Alan?"

                "Present," he groaned, sounding like he was still catching his breath.

                "Figment?"

                "Right here!" came a voice to Ellie’s left. "Give me a second-"

                Some fiddling around, a small _crash_ followed by an "oops!" and then a click of a switch.

                An old bulb flickered to life in the center of the room, illuminating the space. It was a medium-sized room, the right wall taken up by a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. On the opposite wall was a drafting table that looked grey at first, before Ellie realized the surface was thick with dust. The tools under the desk had the same coating, choking the shine out of the metals. Next to it was a wooden door set into the wall, firmly shut with a dusty knob.

                The wall in front of her had a strange device inset in it, mostly dusty brass with the words _‘Idea Storage’_ stamped into a name-plate. The domed window on it was dark and colorless.

                There was one corner that seemed almost completely untouched by dust, just to the right of the odd device. Various knick-knacks were arranged next to a small pile of clothes, a top hat lying on its side nearby. All the wall space about a foot up from the floor was covered in childish scribbles, painted on in various mediums. A pile of books- presumably pilfered from the nearby bookshelf- lay on the floor, looking well-read.

                In any other situation- even under circumstances as dire as these- Figment would have been more than happy to show his three unscheduled visitors his toys and trinkets, proud to show off Blair’s inventions. In any other situation- but now his attention was absolutely riveted on Dean, who had stopped dead upon sight of the room and its contents, and now stood quietly with his back to the others.

                “Dean…?” The little dragon couldn’t push away the feeling that had struck him back in the lab, that flare of heart-deep connection he’d missed for so long. He reached out. His small paw was trembling.

                “Are you okay? What… what did they do to you?”

                Dean’s shoulders sagged, the light-bulb logo on the back of his labcoat creasing as he reached up, lifting the still slightly smoking helmet off his head. His hat was still under it- Doubt had turned it backwards in the moments before he set the helmet on his head. He turned it around, his face meeting it halfway as he turned to face them.

                By all standards he looked like Dean- the purple baseball cap, the stubbly chin, the show labcoat- and mere minutes ago all of them would have agreed it was no-one other than Dean Finder standing before them.

                But not any more. Nothing had changed- and everything had. There was no question in anyone's mind that standing in front of them was none other than Blarion Mercurial, the Dreamfinder, looking very out-of-place in modern clothing.

                "They did the one thing they shouldn't have." He smiled, warmly.

_"Blair!!!"_ Figment moved like a shot, Blair catching him as the small spark launched into his arms. They hugged, the dragon's body wiggling as if he couldn't get close enough. Blair laughed, tears squeezing out and sliding down his cheeks.

                "I missed you too," the Dreamfinder managed to say as he held him, looking like he had no intention of letting go any time soon.

                “Holy _smokes,”_ breathed Ellie, her eyes huge and awestruck. Behind her, Alan’s mouth wandered open, and stayed that way.

                “I don’t understand,” croaked Figment, into Blair’s armpit. “All this time, you were right here… I’d know you anywhere… why didn’t I know it was you?”

                "I'm so sorry, Figment." Blair held him a fraction tighter. "I didn't intend to leave you behind like that." He took a deep breath. "I've always thought that the Institute- that you and I- would be targets for Doubt and the Zeitgeist. So, I had to hide, had to erase myself, but something went wrong, and it happened before I had the chance to tell you-"

                "Hold up, rewind!" Ellie found her voice. “What's a Zeitgeist?"

                "The spirit of the age. One of them, at least," Blair replied, as Figment lifted his head from his shoulder.

"And not a particularly good one. Obsessed with the spread of information and how corrupting it can be if handled poorly. The Doubt is a nightmare, and feeds off the misgivings of people. I'm afraid you all just met both of them in a horrid team-up I was hoping would never happen if I hid in the first place."

                “But- Dreamfinder...” Figment looked up at him. His big yellow eyes were wet with tears, joy and pain all at once. “We _beat_ the Doubt! Don’t you remember? We can face anything as long as we’re together- you didn’t have to hide-”

                “Sometimes the best way to win a fight is to prevent it from ever starting,” said Blair, quietly. “I thought it would be worth it, as long as I could protect everyone in my absence, and I planned to leave a trigger to wake myself up once the threat had passed. I had no idea how quickly it would happen. I was trapped in the identity I made to cover my tracks- Figment, please believe me, if I’d known, I’d never have- I-”

                The Dreamfinder fell silent, wrapping Figment’s small form in his arms.

                There was a long silence before he spoke again. “And I'm sorry to both of you as well," he said, looking to both Ellie and Alan. "I remember everything we did when I was Dean, and I'm sorry you had to find out like this. I hope you both can forgive me."

                “Oh- no, no, no, I’m good!” Ellie shook her head so hard her definitely-non-dress-code-compliant beaded headband nearly smacked Allan in the face. “I mean, this is probably the weirdest thing that’s happened to me since Burning Man but it’s- it’s incredible! Doctor Blarion- Professor Mercurial- oh, who cares- I’ve been hanging with the Dreamfinder for like, _years!_ This is _wild!!”_

                “Yeah… wild,” said Alan, who had finally managed to get his jaw off the floor. He had folded his arms and was watching Blair in the same sort of way he tended to watch dubious viral videos; very carefully, searching for the trick.

                "I know what you're thinking, Alan," the subject of his scrutiny said, "and I hope this means we all can still be friends. I am Dean, more or less, and Dean is me-"

                "-And we are all together! Coo coo ca-choo!" Figment added.

                "Exactly, now-" Dreamfinder was interrupted by a deep bassy rumble that went through the building, dust raining down from all the untouched furniture.

                "- we'll have to discuss the implications of all this later. Right now, we have a bigger problem." His eyes were wide and alert behind his spectacles. "Almost a century ago- wait, what year is this again?"

                "2018," Ellie offered.

                "Dean never was good with dates- right, so pretty much exactly one century ago, I invented the Mesmonic Converter. While it brought a lot of good things, like Figment here-" He paused to scratch behind the dragon's horns. "It also brought some terrible possibilities. If in the wrong hands, or just unfocused ones, the Converter can make very grim and dark realities come to life. I thought it was over when I destroyed the helmet in our first clash with Doubt..."

                All eyes turned to the battered helmet, temporarily forgotten on the floor.

                "But it appears I was wrong."

                Ellie picked it up, gingerly. It felt slightly warm to the touch, feverish. She turned it over, chewing her lip.  
                “I gotta say, it looks… really un-destroyed.”

                “Different helmet, Ellie,” said Blair, with a smile. “The Institute asked me to create _this_ Converter for research purposes. I saw it as an opportunity to make some improvements to my original design, but I had to leave it unfinished when I-”

                “Okay, Mr, uh, Dreamfinder, sir,” Alan broke in, “Do you think maybe we should save the exposition for a point when we aren’t potentially about to get hunted down at any second? If you used that thing to...” He waved his hands in a worried little jazz. “...Save The Day, before, can you, um, do it again, please? Now?”

                "Yeah!" Figment pawed away the last of the tears, starting to smile again. "Imagine up something nifty, DF!"

                Blair smiled as he took the helmet back from Ellie and turned the dial on the side. The helmet hummed, the noise growing rapidly louder in pitch... before it all gave out. It jumped in Blair’s hands as it coughed and sparked in a tired wheeze like a backfiring car. One of the goggle lenses popped out and clattered to the floor.

                "Oh, my." Blair’s lips pursed. "That's not good."

                "What happened?" asked Figment, who had hidden behind Alan’s shoulder at the noise.

                "Restoring me must have fried it," Blair observed, turning the helmet over in his hands. "Not a problem, I hid away some replacement parts for just such an occasion."

                “Neat!” said Ellie, just as Alan said “Where?”

                “Not too far,” said Blair. “We might have to watch our step out there, but I don’t think getting hold of them should be too much of a problem. First of all, though...”

                His gaze meandered across the dusty old room, taking in the tools and the memorabilia Figment had hidden away. With the helmet smoking gently under his arm, his free hand fiddled with the lapels of Dean’s rumpled lab-coat.

                “Since we’re here… I won’t be a moment.”

* * *

 

                Ellie pressed her back to the wall, peering carefully around the corner. She hugged the purple shoulder bag Blair had given her close to her chest, feeling the bulk of the broken helmet underneath the fabric. The queue line was empty now, occupied now by nothing but the green fog that seemed to have only increased in volume while they were away. Ellie spied Q walking along the line, the tails of her labcoat lifting slightly in the fog as she turned into the Dimensions lab.

                The door clicked shut, and Ellie turned back to her team. "Coast is clear, c’mon!"

                Quietly as they could, they all darted through the fog and out the guest entrance. Ellie caught sight of the 60+ minute wait sign she had put out earlier that morning. It certainly wasn't that long of a wait now.

                Blair set his top hat back on his head, looking and feeling more like himself now that he had his old suit on.

                The park was eerily quiet. Guests stood here and there, like deactivated toys. Unlike the walking, talking staff, most of them seemed to be closer to the fear zombies that Figment and Blair remembered- distressed, slack faces, limp arms, slow, ponderous reactions. Parents, children, couples, school groups… they all stood like stalled machines, left without a program… or waiting for a signal.

                Alan looked up at the bank of wait-time boards across the square. The LCD screens were dark, empty. He pulled out his phone, staying close on Ellie’s heels.

                “Mmh,” he mumbled. “Wifi’s back up. Not that that’s a lot of help... _‘@Orange Country Sheriff’s Office- SOS, Epcot park overrun with zombies’._.. yeah, that totally won’t get ignored. I’d call in a bomb threat, but I kind of like the idea of not going to jail if we survive this...”

                "At them?" Blair asked, Figment never drifting more than a foot away from him at all times. "What are you talking about?"

                "Twitter?" Alan said, his statement turning up into a question as they walked under the monorail overpass. Below them were plaques depicting important scientific discoveries, but they completely obscured by the green fog covering the ground.

                'Twitter..." Blair trailed off, as if he was trying hard to place what the word meant.

                “Yes, remember, I showed you-” Alan cut himself off. “I showed _Dean.”_

                “C’mon, give the guy a break,” said Ellie, from up ahead. “Getting all your own memories back out of nowhere like that must be kind of discombobulating, huh, Doc?”

                “Just a little,” agreed Blair, Figment alighting on his shoulder again as they sneaked a peek around the corner of the underpass.

                Alan was awkward around people. He was, generally speaking, an anxious, gentle, and ruthlessly self-analytical person, and he’d never quite understood how some people made friends so easily. The prospect of talking to strangers made him feel like he was about to pass out a good seventy percent of the time, and it had been an almost comedic number of morning and evening bus journeys before his friendship with Dean had gone anywhere past a raised eyebrow and an awkward smile. The first time they’d actually talked had almost certainly been Dean’s doing, because that was just how Dean was- open, frank, kind. He vividly remembered a day when he’d been the tardy one for once, overslept and arrived at the bus stop late to find Dean, one foot off the bus and one foot on, clumsily trying to text Alan’s number while the irritated driver yelled at him through the divider.

                Dean did things like that. Somehow, Alan couldn’t imagine a Victorian genius-philanthropist-time traveller-inventor taking the bus, let alone holding one up for a random fellow-commuter who worked in IT. Although Alan was well aware that there were more important things at stake here, and that maybe Blair ‘I have no idea what Twitter is’ Mercurial was a little more useful in this dire situation than Dean Finder, it was still a bitter pill for him to swallow. All he could do was what he usually did, which was to try to focus on the facts. For example-

                “Where exactly are we going?”

                "You all know it as the Wonders of Life- well, _knew_ it as the Wonders of Life. Before I accidentally... erased myself, I stored some backup equipment and the Dream Machine there. Since the pavilion is no longer open to the public, I figured it was one of the best places to hide something."

                "Cooooool!" Ellie gushed, trying to keep her voice down as they approached Innoventions. The sky over the entire park had become overcast, the darkest of the clouds still hanging over the Institute behind them. With the absence of the sunshine, they all became aware of a faint glow approaching.

                Through the arc of the building, they could see Innoventions plaza, Spaceship Earth presiding over it as it always had.

                “The screens are new," Alan said.

                They were everywhere, large and impossible to ignore, mounted to every spare pole, awning and wall. Some were as tall as Blair was. The biggest was mounted on a small stage by the Fountain of Nations. The guests stared blankly at them, the rainbow ‘stand-by' pattern reflecting on their faces.

                “Kind of a boring show,” said Ellie, dubiously. Figment flitted past her, touching the nearest screen with a stubby claw. He looked back to Blair, confused.

                “What are they for?”

                “I don’t know, Figment.” The Dreamfinder pushed his hat back, thoughtfully. “If you remember, the Doubt was able to communicate basic instructions to the people in its control without the need for any kind of information relay. I’d swear these people seem to be under exactly the same sort of influence...”

                "Well, I think it's safe to assume whatever they're for, it’s not something good," Alan said, warily eyeing a group of three young women staring at the nearest screen. They all had their phones out, hands limp at their sides. "But again, can I remind everyone that Not-Channing could find us any minute, if he's as technologically-inclined as you say he is."

                "Right," the Dreamfinder agreed. "Come along, now." They started striding across the plaza towards Mission: Space.

                As they left the plaza through another archway and past Mouse Gear, another deep, close rumble broke its way across the sky. There were more frozen guests here, and another blank queue-time board. In the distance, they couldn’t hear the usual roar of Test Track. Combined with the absence of the atmospheric music, it made for a very creepy feeling.

                Blair felt Figment set himself back on his shoulder. He found his thoughts turning to Dean's experiences with the little dragon.

Not that Channing was a bad guy, but he certainly wasn't the kindest foil to Figment at times. His best friend, his buddy, had been alone for so many years without knowing where he'd gone. Even considering how carefree Figment was, Blair knew he had inevitably at one point thought of why his best friend, his only family, seemed to have up and abandoned him. At least Dean had been there to comfort him, but it didn't make the thought of his spark thinking he’d been abandoned hurt any less.

    It had seemed like such a simple idea on paper. It was hard to describe to anyone who’d never worn the Mesmonic Converter how it slipped into his head each time, sorted through his thoughts, how he had to guide it with exactly the right balance of an easy yet vigilant rein as it leafed through the information stored there- the discipline involved, to make sure it stopped in the right place, pulled the right thing out of the busy index of his mind. He’d known what he’d wanted. The shape of the things he needed to hide from were fresh in his mind- he’d felt them through the Converter in the first place, after all, and he wasn’t about to forget that feeling in a hurry, the cold familiar touch of the Doubt and something else new and fast and rapacious and slippery as an eel. Far away, but hungry, and searching. To evade them, he’d needed to be small, dull, beneath notice. Ordinary. He’d formed the idea exactly.

And still, after all this time, he’d failed to appreciate the power of the Mesmonic Converter. It hadn’t just turned him into Dean. He’d wanted to hide, and it had hidden him. It had rearranged reality itself to hide him. It had swept Blair Mercurial away like an inconvenient cobweb, and Dean Finder had woken up in his apartment, with a headache and the lingering feeling that there was something he’d forgotten to do.

    Before that, he could only just touch the memory of the change itself. It hurt, like the faded pain of a sore tooth. Just as it was too late, he’d realised what was happening, that he wouldn’t even know that he needed to wake up. He’d tried to stop, but it had all moved so fast, he hadn't had time, he'd tried, he'd _tried-_

No, that memory hurt too much, Blair thought to himself, and slightly tilted his head into Figment as they walked. He'd have time to dwell on it later

 

                “Oh, I don’t like this,” said Alan, under his breath. He was on his phone again, nearly walking into Ellie as she slowed. “Look. Official Youtube channel’s streaming the same test pattern. And… oh, boy. Channing, Winters, Szalinski, Brainard… looks like everyone with any kind of social media account’s linking to this thing.”

                “I’m gonna check on Facebook,” said Ellie. “Hey- friend me!”  
                “Uh, I don’t really use Facebook- I mean, I _have_ one, but...” Alan squinted. “...Did you really post a selfie back there? _‘Escaping from work, literally!!! #zombieapocalypse, #weirdstuff #dreamfinder #bestdayever’??_ We’re literally in mortal danger right now!”

                “Yeah, but it’s a really good photo...”

                As the two started comparing Facebook feeds, they didn't notice Dreamfinder beginning to lag behind.

                "Hey-" A pair of yellow eyes in his visage caught his attention back. "You OK, buddy?"

                "I'm, what's the term- out of my league here, Figment. These phones, the internet, the social connectivity, even _I_ couldn't imagine a world like this in 1910, much less now."

                Ellie took another selfie, setting off a round of protests from Alan as she hunched over her phone, already posting.

                "I knew this was how the Zeitgeist operates, and I hoped being Dean would prepare me, a new perspective to help navigate this world but-" He patted his coat pockets, pants, breast pocket. He'd left Dean’s- _his-_ phone in his labcoat.

                "I don't think I learned very much of anything at all, and now I'm in the same position I was the first time we faced the Doubt."

                The fog around Blair’s feet grew thicker.

                Figment hummed. “But you didn’t grow up with all this stuff like Ellie and Alan did. I bet it’s just a matter of time. C’mon, Dreamfinder- when have you ever come up against any kind of… doohickey or thingamabob you haven’t been able to figure out?”

                Blair couldn't help but smile, shyly. "Perhaps you're right, Figment..."

                He trailed off, his eyes taking on that far-off, dreamy look. He was thinking, getting an idea. Figment knew that look, even with his eyes closed, and he bounced a little on Blair’s shoulder. Now he _knew_ his best friend was back.

                "Hey!" The imaginating stopped for a moment, as Ellie called back to them.

                "Now what, Doc?"

                The golden dome of the abandoned pavilion rose over the trees that obscured it, stoic and silent as the park rumbled behind them. Normally glinting in the Florida sun, the overcast sky made the hexagonal roof tiles look dull and tarnished.

                "Hm? Ah, yes, brilliant. Now, follow me, you two-"

                They headed up the path, and when they reached the guest entrance, Dreamfinder took a sharp right, heading down an employees-only pathway. The curve of the dome receded, meeting a nondescript show building. Blair stopped at a solid wall, feeling along the surface until his finger caught on something. "There it is-" He reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a brass key and stuck it into the hole. giving it half a turn. Behind the sheet metal facade, they could hear gears clanking and whirring, mechanical arms settling into place, before a square section of the wall buckled inwards and slid open into a wide entryway.

                "Whoah!!" Figment clapped, as Ellie’s phone camera clicked.

                The hidden workshop was one large room, and one that had been left in a state. Frozen in time, work benches heaped with tools and metal and junk of all kinds lined one of the walls. One bench seemed to have most of its contents spilled onto the floor. Another drafting table stood nearby, nearly hidden under large blueprints and stacks of notes. Posters and scribbled notes were pasted to the drywall, giving the room its fitting atmosphere of being a place where ideas were bounced around. The gears in the wall sputtered and ground as they jerked to a stop, Blair’s smile turning to a frown.

                "That doesn't sound good. Guess my lock system rusted while I was gone." He went to inspect it, leaving Ellie and Alan to fixate on the largest draw of the room. In the back, a very large sheet seemed to be covering an object with so many odd angles and tubes sticking out of it that it was hard to tell what exactly was hiding underneath.

                “All those people mobbing this place for wine samples and hors d’oeuvres every year, and they have absolutely no idea all this was just… through the wall,” said Alan, picking papers up from the dusty tiles. Ellie unpacked the helmet from her bag and set it on the drafting table as she passed, her eyes fixed on the mysterious, shrouded object. Never one to stand on ceremony, she took hold of a corner and gave the heavy tarpaulin a good yank.

                It slid to the floor, revealing the strangest contraption she’d ever seen. It was mounted on a scaffold, as it had neither wheels or props, just a series of ballast pods hanging from a frame made from tarnished bronze tubes. Its design was a bizarre mixture of skeletal and cosy, with pistons and chambers, valves and dials everywhere, a red leather chair with an ornate, padded back, and a sagging rear compartment that seemed to have been sewn, of all things, out of a red tartan blanket.

                The whole thing hung beneath a top scaffold, which acted as a cradle for a great deflated blue-purple mass of faded silk that draped down in a complicated spiderweb of tangled guylines. Starry-eyed, Ellie approached through the dust-cloud that had mushroomed up around the falling tarpaulin, paying no heed to Alan sneezing and spluttering behind her.

                "Oh, my gosh," she said, eyes wide. "Is this...?"

                "Yep!" Figment zipped over, setting himself with a small puff on the red chair. "The Dream Machine! Ta-daa!"

                "It’s... bigger than I thought it would be," Alan said, arms folding as he leaned in to examine some of the valves as if it would spring to life any minute.

                "Figment, be careful with that old girl," Blair said from the door mechanism, where he was attempting to dislodge a metal pipe that seemed to have been jammed into the system.

                "I got this!" Figment fluttered over and turned a key, and the dream machine shuddered to life, shaking off a layer of dust. With a mighty pull, Figment tugged a lever, and the massive funnel at the front sputtered.

                "Ellie! Think of something, anything!"

                "RAINBOW!" she blurted, without the slightest hesitation. The idea lifted from her head in a multi-coloured halo, and was swiftly sucked into the funnel.

                "Now you think of something, Alan!" Figment called, over the sound of the machine and Ellie’s excited noises.

                "I dunno. uh-" Alan panicked. "Toy car!"

                The machine tugged the idea from his mind in a green blur, and once it was in, Figment pulled a different lever. The machine shook and sputtered, even more dust shaking off before it let out a little 'ding!'

                Figment zipped behind the chair and emerged, holding aloft a small toy car tinged in a rainbow spectrum. "Ta-daaaa!"

                He tossed it to Alan, who juggled with it in surprise before catching it properly. “See, Blair?” the little dragon cried, gleefully swooping back across the room to land on Blair’s shoulder. “We’ve still got the ol’ magic!”

                “It really does make something out of nothing...” said Alan, turning the toy car over and over in his hands.

                “Not nothing!” chirped Figment, flipping over in the air. “Ideas and notions! Schemes, scintillas, dreams, emotions!”

                Alan closed his eyes for a moment. “Okay. It makes stuff out of abstract concepts that all basically boil down to names for electrical activity in the brain. Cool! Does anyone have any Ambien?”

                "You're more or less correct. Good deduction, Alan," Blair praised, before giving an impressive tug. The metal rod popped out. He held it up, eyeing the end that had been pinched in various places thanks to the cogs. Someone had put this here. It hadn't been Dean, had it? Blair had to admit there was a hole in his memory between when he went to sleep and when Dean woke up in his apartment.

                "Right!" He clapped his gloved hands as he tossed the metal pipe aside. "Time to get to work." Crossing to the drafting table, he pushed aside some blueprints and papers, finding a diagram of the helmet. "I was drawing up some improvements before I left. Stabilization- so anyone can use it, extended range, the works. This shouldn't take me terribly long to fix." His smile was optimistic, as he picked up the helmet and popped the goggle lens back in.

                "Figment, do you see my welding torch?"

                “I got it!” The little dragon flitted across to the clutter by a sloped drawing table, reaching for a heap of tools. “It’s right… here...?”

                He stopped, paw still outstretched, alighting on the drawing table’s stool. He was staring at a paper fixed to the board, just a scrap with an uneasy line of writing in what looked like green marker faltering across it.

 

                _Figment, I’m De_

The sentence died off in a wonky downwards line. The green marker was lying in the groove at the bottom of the board, cap off, tip long since dried out. Figment picked it up slowly, as Ellie came up behind him, touching his small shoulder.

                “I’ll just… grab that for ya,” she said, quietly, pulling the torch from the heap of tools herself.

                "Everything okay?" Blair asked, as Ellie handed him the torch.

                "I'm not sure," she replied. "But don't worry about it, we got a park to save."

* * *

 

                Dreamfinder set to work immediately, tinkering and retrofitting. At some point, Ellie and Figment’s game of nonsensical tic-tac-toe was interrupted by a few rapid pops. He did his best to relay what he was doing to Alan as he worked, and Alan for his part didn't have the heart to tell him that he was only comprehending about 50% of what Blair was babbling on about.

                Soon the helmet announced itself operational again with a warm hum, and Blair could feel it come to life in his hands.

                "Got it!"

                “I knew you could do it!” Figment deserted the board he and Ellie had drawn in the dust on the floor and shot to Blair’s side, clambering to peer over his head to the helmet in his hands. “Good as new!”

                “So, what’s the plan?” said Ellie, eagerly, getting up. She’d shucked her labcoat, tying it around her waist. Alan slid down from the table he’d perched on.

                “The plan is, the Dreamfinder here does his thing, and we stand behind something solid.” He cracked his neck stiffly, glancing at Blair. “No- no offence, sir, but it did already blow up once.”

                "Actually, I was hoping one of you would be willing to give it a try-"

                "Nope," Alan said quickly. "No way."

                "Ooh!! Me!!" Ellie waved her hand. "Me first!"

                "Hold on-" Blair held the helmet out of her reach. "Let me give it a test first. The mesmonic converter isn’t something you can just put on. You need to be focused, calm, and have a specific idea in mind, or it could wildly misinterpret what you’re thinking."

                He removed his top hat. His hair was still just as wild as it had been when he was Dean. It was quickly replaced by the helmet.

                "Be careful!' Figment spoke up, from Alan’s shoulder.

                "Always." Blair closed his eyes, and after a moment the helmet started to hum. Alan felt something drop on his head. He looked up as a droplet of rain plopped on his nose. A few more drops, and then a rumble of thunder. The helmet sparked with energy as a small rain shower fell on Alan, Ellie, and Figment.

                "A brainstorm!" Figment exclaimed with a grin. "It works, Dreamfinder!"

                "Better than we could ever have hoped," came a voice from the doorway. Green fog poured into the room, and just as Blair turned, a shadow whipped out, catching him in the eye. He spun, the helmet flying off his head just before he hit the floor. It rolled as the shadow retracted, returning to the darkened, doubtful lookalike of Blair.

                The Zeitgeist stood firmly in the doorway, arms folded behind Channing’s back.

                "Thanks for doing the hard part for us, you old coot."

                Ellie scrambled for the helmet. Her fingers were inches from it when the dark rivulets of fog swirled up around her, making her choke and miss her grab. Doubt hooked it up out of her reach, an inky tendril snaking through the back of her shirt and yanking her up off the ground.

                “I believe you were looking for this, partner,” whispered the twisting shadow, gleefully. The Zeitgeist held out his blackened hands, and the helmet dropped neatly into them.

                “Perfect. All fixed up and ready to go. You did a number on the Converter back there, but our _talented staff_ had more than enough time to make the necessary improvements while you were running around out here. We were even starting to get bored… you really are slowing up, old man.”

                The Zeitgeist lowered the helmet onto his head.

                “Now… let’s see what this thing can do.”

                “No!” Blair pushed up with his hands, trying to rise, but it was too late. The helmet crackled with purple-tinged electricity, and a shockwave broke through the room. Papers flew, and it forced everyone’s eyes closed as a high-pitched ringing split the air. His hands flew to his ears, trying to block out the noise, but it seemed to be boring into his very skull. He tried to open his eyes, tried to stay awake, but he was no match for it, and everything went black.


	3. DreamFrauder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dreamfinder has no plan and no ideas, and now the Zeitgeist has the Mesmonic Converter in hand. With the park deep under the Doubt's iron rule, the entire world is about to see what the Zeitgeist can do with the power to modify reality. With his enemies taking control of truth itself, the Dreamfinder might not make it out alive.

 

  When Blair could open his eyes again, he found himself face down against the concrete. His head was throbbing, and there was a droning in his ears that was rapidly fading. His top hat shifted into focus, lying sideways a short distance away. Behind it was a purple tail he’d know anywhere.

                “Figment-” He crawled over on his elbows, setting his hat back on his head. Gentle hands turned the Dragon over. “Figment- buddy-”

                A tense moment, and then the dragon let out a small groan, his yellow eyes fluttering open. “Oough, my head-”

                Dreamfinder’s shoulders slumped. Figment was okay. Now, where were they? Lifting his head, he could see he was nearly face to face with one of the Innoventions Plaza’s new screens. Now, instead of a test pattern, a solid countdown was displayed on the screen. The Zeitgeist’s borrowed face flashed up, still wearing the helmet.

                “Greetings, Internet! I’m Dr. Nigel Channing, and I thank you for tuning in to this special livestream put on by the Imagination Institute. Now our institution considers itself very secretive, normally only a small portion visible to the guests of the Walt Disney World resort, but today, we’re not just pulling back the curtain, we’re ripping it off the rod! So, stay tuned for some important announcements, and prepare to see some truths blown wide open!”

                “No-” Dreamfinder lifted himself up, looking around for the Zeitgeist, Ellie and Alan.

                “Ah-ah, ah,” whispered a voice, in his ear. The dark shape of the Doubt formed swiftly beside him, sinking cold fingers into his back. “We wouldn’t want to interrupt the show, would we, Dreamfinder?”

                Fighting dazedly into the air, Figment lurched at the looming entity, but a snaky tendril wrapped up around him in a heartbeat and yanked his wings to his sides. As the little dragon was pulled away, still struggling furiously, the Doubt turned and Blair got his first full view of the plaza. The Zeitgeist stood on the steps below the biggest screen, smiling complacently under the helmet, which was sputtering and sparking with white-purple energy. A little way to the side, Ellie and Alan stood in the joint grip of several large, blank-eyed members of park security.

                “And it appears we have a special guest!” grinned the Zeitgeist, as the Doubt shoved Blair forwards. “We all thought he was gone, vanished, disappeared for good, but it seems he was just _hiding_ all these years. If that sounds a little odd, just a smidgen _unbelievable_ to any of you out there, oh, you just wait and see! Give it up for the Dreamfinder!”

                A few blank-eyed guests gave some weak, uncoordinated claps as Blair stumbled into the shot. He lifted his hat to see some poor, blank eyed guest aiming a hand-held camcorder straight at his face. His bewildered expression surrounded him, appearing on every screen in the Plaza. “A pleasure to have you here, Professor. Glad you decided to return to us!” The painted face grinned as the Zeitgeist clapped his hand on his back. To the viewer it looked like a friendly armrest, but Blair could feel the Zeitgeist gripping at the back of his coat through to his vest.

                “I don’t know what you’re trying to achieve,” he started, “but-”

                “No, that’s fairly obvious at this point,” said the Zeitgeist, in a horrible parody of sympathy. “I have it on good authority you’re a force to be reckoned with, but we finally meet, and, honestly- don’t take this the wrong way!- but I can’t say I’ve been bowled over so far. A slack-jawed anachronism who can’t even use a smartphone. I’m sure your little bag of tricks was _very_ impressive back in the seventeenth century or what have you, but these days… the world’s moved on, Dreamfinder. Case in point...”

                He reached up, adjusting one of the dials on the side of the helmet. The sizzling sound increased, purple lightning arcing through the air and grounding on the stage.

                “We’re not so easily flummoxed by all your smoke and mirrors, and the people out there are sick of being lied to. Don’t you think it’s time we gave them the truth?”

                “The truth? I don’t know what you’re talking about-”

                “Let’s start with a small one, hm? And considering we’re located in the ‘happiest place on earth,’ let’s keep with that theme, shall we? Any Disney park nut will tell you that one of the best foods in the Magic Kingdom is the world-famous Disney Turkey Leg, but is it _really_ turkey?”

                Dreamfinder glanced back at Ellie and Alan, before he found the camera shoved in his face again as The Zeitgeist continued with a flourish. “Some credible sources, even a Disney insider- who didn’t want to reveal his name for fear of legal action- claim that the massive legs are made of _emu,_ not turkey!”

                Blair blinked. “Uhm… I… well, I would say that they have no reason to lie about what they’re serving guests.”

                “Let’s present the facts, shall we, Mr. Mercurial?” The Zeitgeist clicked a button, and an image blinked onto the screens of a Disney turkey leg, held by a guest. “These things are massive! There’s no way that could be a _turkey_ leg, otherwise our Thanksgiving dinners would be huge!” The guests all nodded, murmuring nonsense as conducted by Doubt. The fog around their feet grew. 

                The Zeitgeist leaned into the camera. “Disney actor and insider Zachary Levi even confirmed this on late-night television. If Disney is hiding what they’re serving guests who paid their hard-earned money to visit, what _else_ could they be lying about?”

                Silence. Blair could feel himself start to sweat under his hat. “Uhm- well, I admit, I don’t quite know much about emus, the last book I read on flora and fauna was a long time ago...”

                “I don’t get it,” whispered Ellie. “Emu legs? Their evil plan was telling everyone about… emu legs?”

                “It’s not about the emu legs,” hissed Alan. He struggled briefly with the guard holding his arm, slapping the guy’s hands away for just long enough to grab his phone. The guard didn’t seem to mind too much. Besides not letting the two of them go anywhere, he and his buddies seemed to be on more or less the same slow, dreaming autopilot as the guests.

                “It’s not- _gettoff-_ it’s not about any of this stuff in itself, Ellie, don’t you get it? It’s- something out of nothing- or _truth_ out of a bunch of bullshit- let _go_ of me, Malcolm!” He shook the dull-eyed guard from his shoulder and pushed forwards up the steps, holding his phone up like a torch. “Hey, you! Zeitgeist! Snopes debunked the whole emu thing like two years ago!”

                The thing wearing Channing’s face turned towards him. Caught in the Zeitgeist’s smirking, burning stare, Alan swallowed and lowered his phone a fraction.

                “Oh, well, if it says so on _Snopes,_ it must be true,” said the Zeitgeist. “I stand corrected! Clearly, if we want hard facts, the _first_ place we want to be looking is a website that was sued just last year for, quote, _‘unlawful concealment and conspiracy to restrict corporate information.’”_

Alan blinked at the giant screens, which at a wave of the Zeitgeist’s hand had changed to show headlines, articles, data scrolling up too fast to read. Too fast to read _closely._ Certainly enough to leave a bad impression.

                “That’s not-”

                “Or a website that’s repeatedly had to crowdfund its own legal battles, because it just can’t seem to avoid those pesky slander suits...”

                “Libel,” managed Alan. “Slander… slander is spoken. Like- Like the stuff you’re saying right now!”

                “And you’re an expert, are you?” For the moment, the Zeitgeist’s attention left Blair, moving fully to Alan as he stood marooned halfway up the steps. “Wonderful! I’m sure everyone’s _dying_ to hear your credentials.”

                “Uh, I- I’m a- well, I- I read a lot of… blogs...” Alan could feel his shirt sticking to his back with sweat. He felt sick to his stomach. The anger was still there, somewhere, the righteous fury he always felt whenever he saw the truth being twisted and kicked around and manipulated to suit the lazy and the desperate and the downright malicious, but the bright unwinking eye of the camera had him riveted like a rabbit in front of a hungry snake. It was all too horribly easy for him to imagine the hundreds of thousands of people across the world staring at him right now, watching, listening. His own face flashed up behind him, across the dozens of giant screens, and he didn’t have to turn around to know how he looked; terrified, small, stupid and so, so dismissible.

                The security guard stumbled up the steps to grab him, but stopped dead as the Zeitgeist raised his hand again.

                “No, no, let him talk! We’re all for free speech, here at the Institute! Please, go ahead, set us all straight...” The Zeitgeist grinned, cruelly. “The world is listening.”

                Alan made a small noise that sounded more like a small fish being stepped on than anything in English. Although the things he knew were bottled up and blazing in his brain he couldn’t say a word, and with his vision full of the faithless eyes of something that _knew_ he couldn’t, with the crowd watching in hazy silence, with the Dreamfinder watching him helplessly from the top of the steps, he dropped his head and fell silent.

                “That’s what I thought,” smiled the Zeitgeist.

                Figment struggled in the Doubts hands holding him. With a raise of the Doubt’s finger, a tendril wrapped around his little snout, silencing any attempt at his usual inspiring words. Dreamfinder wanted to speak up, wanted to say something, anything, to show the world that the person talking was the sharp, clever Alan that Dean had known. But his throat was dry under all this scrutiny. The fog around the ground grew.

                “Just goes to show you, folks-” The Not-Channings face reappeared on the screen as he smiled at the camera. “We here at the Institute know what we’re doing. We are scientists, after all.” The Zeitgeist climbed up the steps, returning to Blair. “Speaking of the Institute, let’s pull back the curtain on a secret I simply cannot contain any longer. Now, you say you used to have a stake in the Institute’s plot in this very park, correct?" The Zeitgeist smiled. It seemed he had all but abandoned exactly copying the Chairman's mannerisms, and it made him all the more unsettling.

                Blair stammered. He could feel his defences were cracking. This is exactly as he'd feared, the reason he'd disappeared in the first place. He was out of his league, and the Zeitgeist knew it.

                "Well, I did for a time, we'd stop by for visits between our travels into imagination."

                "And what did you do, when you were here?"

                "We demonstrated imagination, of course, showing how ideas can be stored and recombined..." Blair tried to look back to Alan, who hadn’t fought as Security brought him back to where Ellie stood.

                "Stored? You can store imagination?"

                "Yes and no, see, ideas-"

                "Ideas can be taken and stored. Using that dream machine of yours that you would parade in front of awed guests. But how does it all work? Have you been taking ideas?"

                "What?" Blair blinked in surprise. “No, I'd never-"

                "I get your game, sir!" the Zeitgeist interrupted, facing the camera with a flourish. "We've been silent about the truth for far too long. You've been stealing ideas _-brain energy_ if you will- from guests for years! Is that why you disappeared? You thought you could get away from it all scratch free, didn't you?"

                "I didn’t-"

                “This study taken only last year shows a whopping ninety-two percent of guests report a whole slew of symptoms of metal fatigue after as few as five to seven hours in the park.” _Click._ Data and text zipped across the screens, paired with photos and schematics of the Dream Machine. “The sort of mental fatigue you might expect, from the victims of a mind-control scheme dating back decades. No patent ever filed for this device, no study on its safety or the effects of long-term exposure… the payoff must be immense, to warrant such blatant disregard for the safety of the guests. Many of them, need I remind you, _children.”_

The helmet was sparking even more now, crackling arcs of savage purple energy spitting from the flared eyepieces and the insulated sides. The Zeitgeist pointed an inky finger directly at Blair. “But perhaps we’re missing a trick, eh? Perhaps it’s hardly fair to be interrogating _you_ about all this, what do you think, _Dean?”_

                The Zeitgeist reached into his- Channing’s- suit, pulling something out, and with a flick of his wrist Dean’s old ID card unfurled. The guest with the camera zoomed in, and Deans nervous grin filled the screens, name clearly visible. Ellie tugged at her captor, head turning to the one screen monitoring the chat feed. New messages were popping up so fast she couldn’t even read any of them. To her right Alan was silent, slumped.

                “It doesn’t take much of a stretch of your precious imagination to see how similar the names are, does it, Mr. Finder? If that _is_ your real name. Quite fortunate that you found a theme park owned by the largest entertainment company in the world that holds story above all else to call your convenient home. Was there ever such a person as Blair Mercurial? Moreover, what sort of a title is _Dreamfinder?_ Quite a choice for an alias, _Dean Finder.”_

                Ellie could see it in Blair’s face. Something was wrong. Figment was still trying, but there was no way he’d be able to break free, at least not in time. It was up to her.

                “Doctor Channing!” she called, and the camera swung around. The guard let go to keep up appearances, and she eagerly stepped away, towards and up the stairs. Swallowing her fear and hoping the shake in her knees wasn’t obvious, she faced the unblinking lens. “My name is Ellie Fleet, I’m an employee of the Institute, and I know Dean. I can’t keep the secrets of his deception any longer.”

                The Zeitgeist leaned in, voice low so the camera couldn’t pick it up.

                “What are you doing, you little cretin?”

                “I’m saving my skin,” she said. “I’m switching sides. After all, wouldn’t having an employee vouch for you live really cement this?”

                “Ellie-” Dreamfinder’s face fell, his heart dropping into his stomach. “Don’t do this-”

                “I have to.”

                The Zeitgeist grinned, lips spreading a bit wider than humanly possible. “I like your style, kid. Alright.”

                Ellie’s sense of enthusiasm was, by normal standards, enormous. In a schoolbook, she had once encountered the maxim _‘If you only have to swab a plank, you should swab it as if Davy Jones were after you.’_ Whatever else had been in the book, the class it had been for, and any other applicable life lessons had all completely skated her by, but that one sentence could have summed her up in any situation. Whatever she did, she did to one-hundred-and-eleven-percent, _minimum._

                So, given the task of being an unrepentant turncoat, she threw herself into it and hopped up the last of the stairs to join the Zeitgeist, waving a wildly accusatory arm at Blair. “I’ve known this guy for years! He’s no more a time-travelling inventor than I am. He can’t even program his TV!”

                Even the Zeitgeist blinked in disbelief for a moment at how she threw herself in, and the distress on the Dreamfinder’s face only made him grin more “Even our own employees are sick of hiding this truth, so let’s just come out with it, shall we?” He gently moved Ellie so she was at his side, fingers cold as they touched the back of her shirt. His face filled the screen once more as the guests murmured.

                “There was no such person as Blair Mercurial. The Dreamfinder is just a figurehead, a fictional character dreamed up by the Institute back in the day as a symbol. Stick an employee in a fancy costume, have him parade around with his ‘pet dragon’ to the delight of the only demographic that could be fooled; three-year-olds.”

                Blair was about to speak up, but he stopped as he took a step forward. His knee almost gave out under him.  
“Dreamfinder?” Figment asked softly as Doubts bone white teeth turned into an inhumanly wide grin.

_“Yes… Do it…”_

                Not-Channing looked at Dreamfinder out of the corner of his eye with a grin. “Time-travelling guy with real dragon?? Pff, yeah, that sounds real, am I right?” He laughed, and Doubt moved a hand like a conductor. The crowd gasped and murmured. Ellie tried to hide her horror as she looked to Figment and Alan. He had lifted his head, eyes fixed on Figment who was struggling more and more in the Doubt’s arms. Was he getting…transparent? The Zeitgeist’s voice was getting louder and the lightning fiercer while the debunking voice echoed through the plaza. Black slime was starting to drip out from under the helmet as he became more and more enraged.

                “The statue in our Institute is as much of a real person as the one of the cartoon mouse! He is nothing more than a symbol, an icon, a _story!_ The Dreamfinder is a Dream _FRAUD!!”_

                Blair coughed, gagged. He’d felt something like this when he became Dean, but this was far, far worse. The pressure in his ears changed, making everything sound blown-out, faraway as the Zeitgeist droned on. He held up his hand, able to see the concrete through it. The sound of reality being rewritten roared in his ears.

                He was being debunked.

                Ellie breathed in a giant winded gasp as she finally understood. _Something out of nothing. Truth-_

She didn’t stop to think. She was already so close to the Zeitgeist that she could touch him, smell the energy sizzling from the helmet, see the glistening ooze sliding down his face. In one light movement she ducked under the hand at her back, reached up with both hands and snatched the helmet straight off the thing’s head. It resisted, black goop stretching out like pizza cheese for a horrible second, then slipped off. She was already leaping backwards, away from the Zeitgeist’s startled swipe, and the blackened tips of his fingers missed the helmet by inches. There was a great _crack_ of venting static, purplish sparks and the smell of frying goop, which was a little like old dry leaves and a little like burnt baloney and a lot like something she didn’t ever want to smell again, and then she was free and skidding towards the steps, the helmet under her arm.

                The Zeitgeist was screeching behind her, but Ellie had other problems. The crowd was still Doubt’s- their eyes hazy, their faces distorting in anger as they turned towards her- and they made a solid barrier between her and escape. In a thick twisting coil, the dark shadow of Doubt slid between the dozens of dragging feet and whipped up the steps to loom over her, long clawlike fingers reaching out.

                “Brave girl,” it whispered. “Brave… and foolish. You’re not going anywhere.”

                “You wanna bet?” said Ellie. Jamming the helmet on her head, she launched herself past the towering shadow and straight off the top of the steps.

KrAaACK-A- _THOOM_

                An explosion of pink light, a small but seismic thunderclap that mingled with the rising, throaty sound of a throttled engine. Something highly improbable-looking, streamlined and trailing smoke and very, very pink, banked up the steps like a small fighter jet and slalomed across to stop right next to Blair.

                It looked as if it might just have taken a smidgen of inspiration from the Dream Machine, inspiration visible in the long tubes in its chassis and the curved empty spaces where its wheels weren’t, but it was thoroughly space-age in its own right. It looked like a jetbike designed by Vespa, a Harley by way of the Jetsons, completely impossible and indisputably real.

                Ellie reached out, letting go of the handlebars, and dragged Blair onto the seat behind her. “Hold on, Doc, let’s see what this thing can do!”

                "Ellie-" Even with the helmet off, the damage had been done, and the Dreamfinder could feel his vision starting to blur. When she touched him, he didn't feel completely solid, his body seemingly unable to stay fully corporeal. His weight, lighter than usual, rested against her as she revved the engine.

                _"STOP HER!!"_ the Zeitgeist shrieked, his face drenched in the black goop, looking like a nightmare. The Vespa jumped off the stairs, plowing right through the Doubt in a blast of cold air and forcing it to drop Figment in the process, the dragon's form bursting and nearly giving out as he hit the ground. The suspended bike hit the concrete hard, sparks flying, scraping the pavement as she got ahold of its touchy handling. In a twist and curl of shadows the Doubt reformed, sharp teeth baring in a roar as the crowd was beckoned forward to stop her. The guest with the camera kept her in sight as she braked hard with a startled yelp, trying to turn away from the advancing guests as the PTA mom from earlier lunged for the bike.

                "Look out!!"

                Brakes screeched. The bike drifted right into Malcolm with a thud, and Alan was free. Ellie hooked him by his shirt and dragged him onto the back of the bike. Blair held out his hands as she kicked the engine into gear, and Figment scrambled up into his lap, his small form trailing dim sparks, looking bewildered and scared.

                “It’s fine!” yelled Ellie, over the roar of the bike. “I got this! I had a scooter in college!”

                “College?” Alan was clinging onto the pillion like a seasick koala. His eyes were shut.

                “Yeah, for, like… a semester…” muttered Ellie, twisting the long handlebars hard left. The bike veered, missing a stumbling group of guests by inches and carving through an ornamental flowerbed. “It’s all good, though, I’ve been doodling this baby since grade school. Let’s take it up!”

                A hefty backfire and a clot of smoke, and the bike flipped into the sky, trailing a contrail thick enough to drive any conspiracy theorist wild. Ellie levelled off sharply and banked around the great globe of Spaceship Earth, giving the eerie green mists below them a worried look before twisting to look over her shoulder. “Dea- Dreamfinder? Blair? Are you okay?”

                "No-" he reported, in a strained voice. Figment crawled up onto Ellie’s shoulder, and she felt no weight. "Blair, please hang on!" His tiny claws cupped Blair’s face, trying to get him to look at him. They could all practically see Alan through him, as Figment tried his best not to cry. "I just got you back! We can't disappear like this!"

                "I'm sorry, Figment," Dreamfinder managed. "I'm sorry I left you behind, and I'm sorry I wasn't able to tell you- and I'm sorry I wasn't able to save them-"

                "We can fix this! We always fix things!" Figment cried. "If we just put our heads together-"

                "My head wasn't prepared for this world." Blair’s opacity took another dip.

                "Dreamfinder!"

                And that was all Figment could get out before he popped out of sight.

                _“No!”_ Ellie kicked the bike into an idling hover and scrambled round in the seat. Pulling the helmet off, she gripped Blair’s hand. It was like trying to hold smoke- cold, insubstantial. “I’m sorry- I shoulda been faster-”

“It’s not your fault, Ellie.” Blair’s voice was about as substantial as an ancient tape recording, faint and horribly distant. He tried to smile at her. Ellie, holding as tight as she could to a hand that was hardly there, her eyes blurring about as much as Blair’s shape, barely noticed Alan sitting up.

                “I didn’t realise what they were trying to _do-”_

“Neither did I,” murmured Blair. “Not until… it was too late...”

                “Alan- what do we do?” Ellie looked round, desperately, and realised with a shock that Alan was no longer clinging to the pillion seat behind Blair. Neither was the helmet hooked over the handlebar at her side.

                She looked up.  
                “...Alan??”

                With the helmet gripped in both hands like an ungainly football, Alan got to his feet, made an odd little movement with his shoulders that could have been either a shrug or a wince, and stepped off the bike.

                Far below them, the guests moved in a mob, following the bike as it moved around Spaceship Earth. The Doubt took in a deep breath, the abundant fog filling its chest as it grew in size, rising taller over the crowd as they sluggishly pressed forward. The Zeitgeist hopped off the platform, breaking into a run as it followed, and the guest with the camera trailed behind him.

_”Get that helmet!!”_

                The Doubt moved like a ghost over the crowd, positioning itself under the stalled bike, about to breath in more fear to shoot higher as it saw a figure falling from the bike.

                _“ALAN!!”_ Ellie screamed.

                To say that Alan had any sort of detailed plan when he stepped off the bike into thin air would maybe have been giving him too much credit. He’d been in his own little world ever since the Zeitgeist had shut him down so effectively; a very unpleasant little world, orbiting around the miserable knowledge that he’d completely failed to be of any help to Dreamfinder, the cause of objective truth, or basically anything whatsoever. The sea of green fog closed around him as he plummeted, and he started to experience the sorts of sensations any person in the middle of falling nearly two hundred feet without a parachute might naturally feel; terror, extreme regret, and the fervent wish to not be conscious when he hit the ground.

                He fumbled with the helmet, nearly losing his grip on it as the slipstream tried to drag it out of his hands. It occurred to him that this was a very stupid way to die, maybe even more stupid than the one time he’d tried to get a cheap crane shot for a short film in college and nearly broken his neck falling out of a tree. It also occurred to him that the painfully loud noise in his ears was, in fact, his own voice screaming.

                With barely twenty feet to go, with his fingers going numb in the freezing updraft, he finally managed to ram the helmet onto his head.

                Far above, Ellie scanned the mist below her desperately for any sign of Alan as he fell, only to fall back shielding her eyes against a supernova of red-and-gold light that erupted below her. The sound of the explosion was a second delayed, a terrific _KaaAARAAAACKKK_ of a thunderclap that shredded through the fog.

                The Doubt slammed back against the side of Spaceship Earth, pancaking across the angled surface like a fistful of black Silly Putty hurled at a wall. It recovered itself with a snarl, twisting round viciously on whatever had dared to blindside it.

                Whatever- _whoever_ it was, in the place where Alan should have been, was… human. Perhaps. More or less. There was no sign of a crazy contraption like Ellie’s bike or anything small and whimsical like Figment, just someone with Alan’s height and build but not his slouch, someone who touched down neatly on his feet at the centre of the plaza as if he owned the place, straightening the lapels of his bright yellow jacket with black-gloved hands. Although the helmet hid most of his face from the nose up, everything underneath looked as if it was made from some kind of silvery chrome.

                Ellie dared to drift her space-Vespa lower, squinting at the person standing where Alan would have been as the spots in her eyes from the blast faded in her vision.

                The Doubt snarled as it fanned itself out, curling around and cutting off the entrances as the guests formed a crowd. Like an animal on all fours it veered closer, face to face with the newcomer as it bared its bone white teeth. “My, my,” it growled, with hostile interest. Its breath stank like rotting dreams. “And what are you supposed to be?”

                The strange new arrival recoiled from the cryptlike waft of Doubt-stink, waving it off with a gloved hand. “Dude, eat a tictac or something, jeez. I’ll get to you in a second, okay?”

                It was Alan’s voice… sort of. It was Alan’s voice with the sort of clarity and confidence Alan would have given a limb or two for, and it continued smoothly as the newcomer turned to the blank-faced mob of guests. “Greetings, children. Captain Disillusion here, and-” He pulled out Alan’s phone, holding it up as notifications scrolled faster than the eye could follow. _“‘#DreamFrauder?’_ Really??”

                He dropped his voice. “Look. I know it’s easy to feel a little let down. You’re at the low point of your vacation. The weather’s gone to heck, food costs a fortune, and to top it all off, some evil supernatural entity is leeching your free will and turning you all into mindless zombies! Hey, we’ve all been there. But there’s a difference between reasonable scepticism and just believing what you’re told because it sounds _cool_ and _edgy,_ or because you’re scared and you’ve lost your ability to critically evaluate the evidence.”

                He stabbed a finger straight at the Zeitgeist.

                “And the difference is _this_ guy, right here.”

                The guest with the camera, eye locked on the Captain, swung around to the Zeitgeist, who was trying and failing to rein in his appearance.

                Ellie felt her mouth open. Now, _this_ Alan might be enough, but even she knew he was no complete scientist. She looked back to find herself completely alone on the bike. Dreamfinder was gone. Holding back a whimper of sadness, she turned her eyes to the dull glass pyramids in the distance. There was still one scientist she knew of who could help. Making sure everyone below was distracted, Ellie gunned the engine as quietly as she could and headed for the Institute.

                "I have no idea what you're talking about, whoever you are-"

                "I just said, I'm Captain Disillusion, and I can't let you do crap like this-" he waved around vaguely "any longer. You wanna debunk? Let's debunk." The Captain grinned.

                He snapped his fingers. With a sharp, gunshot-like _thwack_ of energy, the giant screen across the plaza changed, quickly followed by all the others in a waterfall of flickering images. The Captain looked mildly taken aback for a second, then rolled right with it. The helmet on his head began to hum.

                “Just for a warm-up, let’s look at the emu thing. We’re talking about the company that’ll gouge you three dollars for sixteen ounces of water, literally the same bottle that’ll cost you forty-five cents in a pack from Walmart. If you really think they’re going to be charging less than twelve dollars for a massive chunk of a meat that goes for thirty dollars a pound wholesale, you don’t know Disney. Plus, have you ever seen an actual emu? No. You haven’t. But other people have, and _they_ took photos, and they allow us to prove that despite the misconception that they’re like, fun-sized ostriches, these demon birds stand up to two metres tall. If those drumsticks really were emu, you’d need the biceps of pro wrestler and Hollywood star Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson just to carry them around!”

                Something beeped. The Captain rolled up a sleeve to reveal a bright red-and-silver device with a small screen that was flashing, urgently, on and off. He hit it with a thumb, and an arc of light sliced up into the air and opened out to display a sharp three-dimensional hologram of a wireframe human getting kicked in the neck by a wireframe emu, complete with helpful measurements. “I mean, I could show you the FDA regulations which make it extremely illegal to sell meat from one animal labelled as meat from another, or the simple publicly-available consumer data that proves the turkeys we eat at Thanksgiving are usually smaller hens, while these massive things are from male turkeys specifically bred for their size. But who really cares? The important thing is, the emu story is just that- a story. And now I’m hungry.”

                He hit the little screen again, shutting the hologram off with a _blip._

                “For _facts.”_

The giant screen changed as he turned towards it, flashing up a giant image of the Dreamfinder and Figment. The rest of the screens followed suit. “See, what people never seem to realise is that two half-truths don’t make one indisputable fact, no matter how hard you try to jam them together. They just make two kinda shitty half-truths, and they make _you_ look dumb if you try to argue otherwise.”

                The Captain shrugged. “As a great man once said, you can argue black is white all you want, but it’s your own fault if you get yourself killed on the next crosswalk.”

                The crowd murmured, and the Zeitgeist looked sharply to Doubt, who was trying to get them back under their complete control once more.

* * *

 

                Across the park, the bike touched down roughly. Ellie wished she still had the helmet, if only to protect her head as the undercarriage shot sparks once more. The fog turned in violent wisps as the bike sliced through it with ease. With a short warning blast from the horn, the steampunk scooter narrowly avoided a startled Institute scientist as it shot through the guest entrance. The sole of Ellie’s shoe skimmed the floor as she took a hard right, rocketing down the hallway before she gunned the engine upwards. It was only after she reached the second floor that she realized she'd only made the jump because there was a cavernous empty space where Dreamfinder’s statue had been.

                Leaning into her handlebars, Ellie took another sharp turn. By sheer luck, she spotted a scientist up ahead leaving Dr. Channing’s lab. Giving the engine one more kick, she blew open the double doors and pumped the brake. She turned the bike to slow it down and came to a stop. Every scientist in the room turned to her with hazy, faraway eyes.

                "Uh, hi," she said. "I'm here for Dr. Channing."

                No-one said anything.

                "Not the dripping, gooey, evil one." Ellie brushed her hair over her eyes in an imitation, wiggling her fingers. "The real one, the actual one."

                Still no response.

                "You know him. British, flyaway hair, not constantly dripping black ooze-"

                "You can try all you want, but they're not going to listen," said a defeated voice, with an equally defeated British clip.

                "Doctor Channing!" Ellie jumped off the bike, and the meagre staff parted to reveal a metal structure that looked like some sort of human-sized birdcage. Said bird was the one and only Doctor Channing, eyes wide in disbelief.

                "Hold on a tick- you're not all-"

                "Zombiefied? No, I'm not. I'm here to get you out of here. Ta-daa!"

                Channing somehow looked even more worried.

                "Now let's get you loose-" Ellie reached for the latch.

                _"Stop!!"_ Channing squeaked, holding up his hands. "The cage is electrified. Those... _things_ locked me in here before they went gallivanting off to do _God knows_ what to my- _yeeeouch!!"_

                In his fervour, Channing had reached to touch the bars, but a sharp warning spark nipped that in the bud.

                "Alright, so it appears this is some sort of zero energy field-" Channing focused back on Ellie, "-meant to block out any electro communications while sealing me in. Not sure if it was on purpose, we should be parallel resistors, but I seem to be the higher of the two. Perhaps if we find a way to overload the RFI with a surge or- but I suppose any electrostatic discharge would be ineffective. I think Brainard was toying with magnetic fields, perhaps if we can generate a charge enough to counteract the-"

                He stopped when he realized Ellie was staring at him blankly.

                "...You're just one of the cast members from the park, aren't you?"

                "Yep!"

                Channing pinched his brow and let out a sigh.

                "Hey," Ellie said, her eyes following a cord that trailed from the cage to a boxy hunk of metal. "Maybe if I pull that switch, it'll shut it off."

                "No, don't-!"

                The metal lever moved down with a heavy _tHunk,_ and Channing squeezed his eyes shut.

                But nothing happened. He opened his eyes as Ellie undid the metal latch and the cage opened.

                "Right. Good. Guess that works, too." Channing straightened his lapels, stepping from the cage. "Now if I may ask, how come you are still up and about and not..." He glanced warily at his staff, who had all become glued to their phones in the meantime. "...like them, for lack of a kind word?"

                "Oh, Dea- the Dreamfinder broke the spell on me."

                Channing froze.

_"What."_

                "Oh, yeah, he's back now- well, he never really left, but he has now and- it's a long story that I'm sure he'd love-" She glanced back at the bike, and her shoulders drooped. "He'd love to tell you if he was here. But that's why I need you. The Zeitgeist basically just poofed Blair out of existence, and maybe if we prove he _is_ real he might come back-"

                Channing was silent for a good long moment, his expression seeming to go through a rather confusing and emotional face journey before he gathered himself.

                "I have just the thing."

* * *

 

                The Doubt was struggling. Resistance was a fairly new rare phenomenon, as far as it was concerned. Everyone and everything through the infinite worlds had a touch of Doubt in them, and while it was there it could dig and creep and entrench itself. Like weeds forcing through concrete, it could always find a way.

                The crowd had been easy, a grey clump of minds all held in the same clammy grip. None of them could resist on their own, and together they were a bunch of stupefied mice in a cat’s paws. It had all been fine, better than fine, as its old enemy was unmade, gloriously defeated, right in front of all these human eyes and minds. It had been wonderful.

                But now, things were slipping. The Doubt could feel control of the crowd sliding away like plates toppling off centre, threads escaping. As soon as it grasped for a hold on one mind, another threatened to awaken and needed tending to. The Zeitgeist’s paranoia worked both ways. The Doubt could have kept a herd of humans paralysed by fear alone quiet for as long as it needed, but the hold the Zeitgeist had over them made their sleeping minds paranoid, nervous, searching for the lie, the danger, some warped notion of the _truth_. The Doubt, who worked best amongst apathy and passivity, wasn’t used to this unbalancing force allied with its own.      

                It was this _thing’s_ fault, this thing that looked like a human but didn’t feel like one, its mind all fizzing spitting awful _questions_ and spiky _knowledge_ and no nice easy cracks for Doubt’s cold fingers to reach and probe. The Doubt loomed over Captain Disillusion, snarling, baffled, and hissed like a mad cat as the Captain touched his wrist again and summoned a blue-white blast of light that stamped a screen-shaped hole right through its inky midriff, as if the spectre towering over him was nothing more than a handy projection wall.

                “Hey, could you keep still? You’re throwing off the focus.”

                The Doubt blinked at the Captain’s utter arrogance, giving him enough time to call up a black-and-white photo of an ensemble of well-dressed men.

                "Here we have the 1909 photo of the Energy Committee at the Academy Scientifica-Lucidus in London, England." The Captain tapped the device, and the photo zoomed in on a man standing in the back; the only one smiling, his glasses giving off a slight glint and even in black and white one could see his hair was brightly colored.

                "Look familiar?"

                The Zeitgeist scoffed, folding his arms.

                "That doesn't prove anything. I could probably Photoshop myself into that picture too."

                Either way, the Doubt quivered as its job grew harder. The Captain had just looked back to his device when a melody cut through the air, creating a sharp Doppler effect rendition of "La Cucaraca" as Ellie’s bike careened into the plaza. Channing shrieked as the bike narrowly avoided a screen and burst through the shrinking Doubt in a gust of cold air.

                "Would you STOP THAT?!" it screeched, as Ellie pulled to a stop inches away from Captain Disillusion and the Zeitgeist.

                "Greetings, Captain!" she beamed, more than aware that the guest with the camera had its eye trained on her now.

                "I brought in an expert for you! The _real_ Doctor Nigel Channing!"

                The crowd gasped, and when the Doubt pulled itself back together, it was significantly smaller. The Zeitgeist froze, and Channing cast his double the nastiest look he could muster as he hopped off the bike, too indignant at the spirit to notice the nervous shake in his own legs.

                "The one and only," he affirmed. He was holding a small, document-sized metal box to his chest. "And I have absolute proof."

                “Oh, come _on!”_ protested the Zeitgeist. Although it seemed to be giving him increasing trouble, he managed to draw the slipping disguise of Channing’s form and face together again. It was almost right and altogether _wrong_ at the same time, an uncanny twin that smeared and hazed and hurt the brain to look directly at. “You expect people to fall for this? You could be anyone, sir! A paid actor, a shill of-”

                He never got any further, because Channing, having pushed the precious box into Ellie’s startled hands, crossed the stage in four furious steps, hauled off and socked him straight in the nose, sending a spray of unpleasant black ichor across the steps and freckling the face of the unfortunate guest with the camera.

                “That’s for messing with _my_ Institute,” snarled Channing, shaking out his black-splattered knuckles as the Zeitgeist recoiled, gasping, holding his unravelling face. “Thank you,” he added, politely, taking the box back from Ellie.

                “Excellent timing,” It was hard to tell if the Captain was referring to Ellie and Channing’s sudden arrival, or the punch. “Everyone, please give it up for the Chairman of the Imagination Institute, Principal Scientist, Director of Operations, and owner of a right hook even _I_ wouldn’t want to get in the way of, and I’m a superhero. Doctor Nigel Channing!”

                Channing, who had been studying the Captain hard throughout this little introduction, squinted at the half-helmeted, half-metallic face.

                “Do I… know you?”

                “Well, most people have heard of me,” said the Captain, smoothly. “Right now, though, there’s something even more important than my popularity at stake, and I don’t often say that. Let’s see what you’ve got for us.”

                "Right." Channing turned the box over and undid the latch. First to come out was a rubber disposable glove, which Channing slipped over his hand, still freckled with black from the punch. Then came a document. The pages were yellowed so much it was practically brown. Intricate diagrams were drawn in faded lines, neat handwriting labelling parts and schematics.

                "Excuse me..." Ellie moved to the guest with the camera, who was starting to blink, the camera slipping.

"I got this. And, uh, you got a little something on your face there. " She picked up the camera, and moved in to the document.

                "This is one of Blarion Mercurial’s original diagrams for the Mesmonic Converter, dated 1910," Channing explained. "After his original disappearance, our Chairman at the time, Stuberry Illocrant, made it very clear that he wanted our Institute to carry on the legacy he left. As such, we have many of his original notes preserved."

                "Are you saying, sir-" The captain moved into the shot, the helmet giving off red sparks as a microphone appeared in his hand. "-that Blarion Mercurial, the Dreamfinder, was a founding inspiration for the Institute as it is today?"

                Channing blinked at the microphone, before he refocused. "Ah, yes, definitely. He embodies the spirit that we have preserved throughout our entire history, and try to keep alive in the Institute today.”

                "And that-" The Captain’s face filled every screen in the plaza, as the Zeitgeist started to struggle to his feet. "-is indisputable. No matter the Photoshop or editing skill, impacts cannot be manufactured. Inspiration, made from sparks-" The helmet offered a few. "-is at the heart of all creation. And it can come from many places. A book, a movie, nature, a story. And no matter what anyone may say-"

                The helmet started to hum, more electricity arcing from it. Channing slowly started to step backwards, while Ellie moved in.

                "A legacy cannot be faked, and that, my friends, is _undebunkable."_

* * *

 

                Not existing wasn't exactly peaceful.

                Dreamfinder was a restless spirit, seemingly unable to stop moving no matter how hard he tried to stay still. It felt almost like it had when he'd been falling into the Nightmare Nation, what felt like a lifetime ago. Something stirred as it struck him that that was a sentence he could say.

                He couldn't see his surroundings. It felt like what happened whenever he closed his eyes, phosphene patterns of incomprehensible light drifting past but unable to be focused on.

                The black, unregistering darkness was endless, eternal, with no up or down or sideways. It just was.

                And then suddenly he could see. A small pink light, barely a glimmer and flickering like a dying candle in a wind tunnel. It was pink. Drifting about aimlessly as if it knew it could go out any minute.

                Dean tried to speak, but he couldn't get his mouth to open. So Blair did what he was good at. He thought.

                The glimmer of light stopped, then sharply listed to the left. Could it hear him? The Dreamfinder thought harder.

 

_Rainbows._

_Trees._

_Blimps._

_The concept of laughter._

_Birthday cake._

 

                The glimmer was frantic now, flitting side to side as it became more and more active. Dean summoned all his strength, all his mental capacity to move.

 

                _Forwards_

_Advance_

_Progress_

_Closer_

 

                Slowly the glimmer was getting nearer. There was a voice in the distance.

_"A legacy cannot be faked, and that, my friends, is undebunkable."_

 

                Blair was getting nearer, faster. The glimmer was growing brighter, more solid, and the Dreamfinder could feel his hands. The thoughts needed to keep coming.

 

_Eyes_

_Big_

_Yellow_

_Steer_

_horns_

_Love_

_Purple_

_Figment_

 

                He reached out for the spark, cupping it in his gloved digits, and held it close.

 

_I'm sorry I left you behind_

_I'm here now_

 

                There was a flash, an overwhelming warmth that made the feeling in his forming limbs buzz with energy.

                He opened his eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

                The flash filled the plaza with light, flooding the stage atop the steps, leaving the guests dazzled, blinking, many of them murmuring in astonishment and confusion as they began to wake up. Ellie, too blinded to see down the viewfinder of the camera for the moment, kept it running as she shielded her eyes with her free hand, squinting against the glare, hoping against hope-

_“Yes!!”_

Blair stepped out of the light as it faded, Figment tumbling after him. Both were blinking dazedly, and as Figment clung to his shoulder, Blair put out a hand and grabbed Ellie’s arm as she ran to him, held on for a moment as if apart from needing a helping hand to steady himself with, he needed to know that his own hands were tangible, real.

                “Now, that’s what I call solid proof,” said the Captain, pulling off the helmet as the last grounding sparks fizzled and died around them. He still had Alan’s hair, his face, his eyes- everything to just above his nose still looked human, but a seam of black glue separated the two halves of his face. “Oh, gross. Helmet hair.”

                Ellie shoved the camera into Channing’s hand as she helped Dreamfinder regain his balance. “You’re back,” she said, her voice breaking. “You’re back.”

                Blair was taking in deep breaths as his lungs remembered how to work. “Yes… thank you, to both you and…Alan?”

                “Oh no, I’m Captain Disillusion, sir.” Glove met glove as he shook his hand. “Welcome back to existence. It’s an honor to have you here, I’ll have to get you on a later show, but, for now-” He looked back at the camera, motioning for Channing to hold it up. “We have to sign off. Thank you for watching this special presentation by the Imagination Institute, and remember, love with your heart-” The captain tapped at his human-skinned temple. “Use your head for everything else. Goodbye!”

                Channing slapped the camera shut and handed it back to the guest it belonged to, who blinked at it as if seeing it for the first time.

_“No…”_

                A growl caught everyone’s attention. The Zeitgeist was a flickering, headache-inducing mess. His form was rapidly shifting as his anger rose. One moment it was Ellie, another it was Alan, before seeming to swerve back to Channing. “Who the hell do you think you are?” He stumbled towards the Captain. “Do you realize what you just destroyed?”

                The Captain stepped forwards, and as the Zeitgeist matched his approach step for step, his herky-jerky phasing appearance settled into a glitching, blurring representation of Alan, how he’d looked when he’d first stolen Alan’s appearance back in Channing’s lab. He made an angry snort of a sound and cracked his neck, brutally, disrupting the illusion of Alan and becoming a malevolent, feral mirror of the Captain as they met at the top of the steps.

                “Do _you_ realize your dynamic duo just became a solo act?” The Captain broke eye contact with the thing wearing his face, and looked upwards. Ellie, Blair, Figment, and slowly the bewildered rest of the audience, followed suit.

                The sky was clearing.

                "After all," he shrugged, forcing himself to look back at his enraged double with a grin. "I have to admit, once I reach my conclusions... there's usually no Doubt."

                The Zeitgeist clenched his teeth, looking as though he was about to explode. He was becoming aware of the stirring guests around them, and how Channing and Blair both were staring at him.

                "This isn't the end of this," he said in a deep, phasing rendition of the Captain’s voice. With that, he seemed to disintegrate into pieces, the breeze sweeping them away with the clouds as the bright Florida sunshine returned, shining even as it began to dip towards the horizon. The last of the green fog was drawn away with the wind.

                The murmur from the crowd was getting louder as Malcolm climbed the steps.

                "Doctor Channing?"

Channing’s face snapped to an expression they all knew well, as he put on his public guise. "Ah, yes, hello, terribly sorry about all this- if you could just check on the guests for us, it would be greatly appreciated." He locked the document back in its box, and set it down. "Thank you. You people in security really are wonderful... now, if you don't mind-"

                He looked to Blair.

                "I have a brief but pressing matter to attend to."

                As Malcolm limped back down towards his fellow security guards, Channing watched him until he was quite sure he was out of earshot, then turned round on Blair, who saw him coming and looked a bit like he was thinking of making a run for it. He had taken the helmet back from the Captain, and as Channing reached him he stood holding it to his chest as if he wished it was bigger, perhaps the same size and shape as a riot shield. Figment landed on his shoulders, half-hiding and half nuzzling reassuringly against Blair’s neck.

                “Where,” started Channing, in a stifled hiss, “on Earth, have you have _been?”_

                “It’s-” Blair glanced helplessly at Ellie, who gave him a supportive double-thumbs-up. He half-smiled. “It’s complicated.”

                “It’s complicated. Yes. Why am I not surprised? Oh, yes, that’s right, because it always is, with you, isn’t it?” Channing put his fingers on his temples and breathed.

                “You know, I did mean what I said, just now. I know bloody well what people say about me- old ‘Corporate’ Channing, not a creative bone in his body, the man who took the ‘Imagination’ out of the Imagination Institute. But for what it’s worth, I’ve given this place my entire career- more or less my entire life, really- and it did occur to me, when _you_ showed up, that here, finally, was someone who cared about it as much as I did. Completely bonkers, of course, but- dedicated to the same principles that made this Institute great in the first place. Because you _made them._ The truth is that this place needs someone like you to inspire it, just like it needs some poor sod like me to run it. _”_

With an automatic little twitch, Channing straightened his tie. It had been through a lot in the last few hours, along with the rest of him. He looked, all of a sudden, like a very, very tired man.

                “And then, just like that, you vanished. Leaving me with your mess, and your problems... and your dragon.”

                Figment shrunk against Blair’s shoulder.

                "I can't apologize enough for what I did," Blair said, addressing both of them. "And had I been able to do it any other way, I would have. But seeing as it happened as it did-" He reached up, giving Figment a reassuring scratch just under the horns.

                "Thank you, Doctor Channing, for taking care of him. I know this little guy can be a big handful, even though he has the best intentions." Figment smiled, nodding. "And I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate that you watched him while I was away."

                "You could thank me by telling me where you went."

                Blair laughed. "Deal. We'll talk later."

                "Thanks, Doc!" Figment waved him off, as the Dreamfinder turned to Ellie and the Captain.

                "And thanks again to you two. Not only did you save the park, you saved us as well."

                "Eh, it was no big deal," Ellie said, pretending to be laid back as she rested on her bike. Her face betrayed her inner excited screaming.

                "And Alan-"

                "Captain Disillusion," the Captain corrected. "It was an honor working with you sir, both of you."

                "Cool face makeup!" Figment commented, as he fluttered close. "Is this-" As the little dragon pulled at the skin, the human facade stretched out like some sort of rubbery, inverted superhero mask.

                "Don't-"

                Figment let go, and the mask snapped back. "Oops, sorry."

                Ellie checked her phone. She didn’t have to do a whole lot of digging to see that things were reverting to normal across her feeds, people frenziedly sharing the video of the stream from the park, comment after comment telling everyone to keep watching to the end. The #DreamFrauder tag was dying, although #Dreamfinder was still trending, and she hoped it would stay that way for a while. Blair deserved to see that people remembered him, more than ever after what had happened.

                The guests were still milling around confusedly, some drifting away, some being herded by security and Channing, who was doing his usual trick of somehow managing to be in three different places at once. Ellie stretched out her arms. It had been the craziest day. What she needed right now, she decided, was something just a little more… normal.

                “You know,” she said, stashing her phone away, “I could really go for pizza right now. Anyone else hungry?”

 

* * *

 

 

                "I got a half sausage, half pepperoni..." the waitress said as she set the pizza down, "and an order of breadsticks." She paused once she’d set them by the man who looked like he was from one of those steampunk conventions. You saw a lot of things working on International Drive, but she had to admit this was the oddest party she'd ever served. "Uh, can I get you guys anything else?"

                "Can I get another water, please?" said the purple… dragon thing, from the highchair.

                "Uh.... y-yeah. I'll get that for you."

                Ellie was already helping herself to the pepperoni side, before handing the spatula to Blair. To his right, the Captain was choosing a breadstick.

                "So," she said. "I guess... now what?"

                "Well..." The Dreamfinder heaped a slice onto Figment’s plate when the little dragon offered it. "Normally, I'd be itching to get back out there, Figment and I have so much out there to discover."

                Ellie tried to hide the slump in her shoulders.

                "But- oh, thank you, Captain-" He took a bread stick before passing the basket. "The Dream Machine might need more repairs, and Doctor Channing gave me a stern warning about what would happen if we took off again. Disney is probably going to want to hear from us exactly what happened. Regardless, I think we should stay for awhile." He looked between Ellie and the Captain. "What do you think, Figment?"

                "I agree 100%!" the spark said, between bites of pizza.

                "Plus, Dean has a lot of loose ends that I'll need to clean up. What about you, Captain?"

                “Well, I think I’ll steer clear of metaphysical debates about whether actual people are real or not for a while,” said the Captain, tapping his wrist device. The holographic display sprang up, showing a series of video clips, from UFOs to impossible-looking stunts. “See, I’ve got a whole back catalog of subjects lined up for debunking purposes… we may have defeated the Zeitgeist today, but while people are still out there perpetuating ignorance and telling everyone on the Internet that things like _this_ are totally real, I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

                "Sounds like a very good plan indeed," the Dreamfinder beamed. "You need any help from me, you let me know."

                "Thanks, DF," the Captain replied, as he helped himself to his pizza.

                "And you, Ellie?"

                She shrugged. "Keep working at the Institute, I guess. If they don't use this as some excuse to fire me."

                "If they do, Dreamfinder and I will just hire you back!" Figment piped up. "That bike she thought up is really something! Blair, we could always use more creative heads!"

                "I agree fullheartedly, Figment," Blair nodded, and Ellie hid her wide grin behind her glass.

                As the rest of his team chatted, Dreamfinder couldn't help but think inwardly. This morning he'd been Dean Finder, lost, alone without a past, no identity, just a job and three friends.

                And now they were family. Now he knew who he was, he had his imagination, and he had his spark. And for the first time in a very long time, in a roadside pizza chain in central Florida a century away from where he'd started, Blarion Mercurial felt _home._

                Speaking of family...

                "Say, Ellie? Could you teach me how to do that video-messaging stuff? I have a three-times-great-grandniece who needs to know I'm back."

 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!!!  
> You can find the authors at   
> andersam5.tumblr and wafflebloggies.tumblr


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